I understand the desire to assist the family, but this is always a slippery slope. What happens if it happens again and you don't know about it or the group decides not to do anything? I can't tell you which perspective is correct on this and that may be the biggest warning sign on this. (My initial gut feeling says that the non-profit folks are correct.) That you are saying the PTO has done specific fund raiser for him even makes me a bit apprehensive.

The business of the PTO is the students in the building and the good of all the students and staff. This sounds like individuals should be opening their personal accounts and donating to the fund. Not being cold, but in a long-term perspective are you going to hold a fund raiser and donate money to every student (present or past) that has a major catastrophe arise? That can't be healthy for your organization and as stated earlier, someone - somewhere is sure to be excluded or forgotten and that just makes it worse.

Former student? Hmm. Our by-laws specifically say "students of" so I think that would rule it out for us.

I think if you want to give money to individuals, you have to set up a grant program, and you have to document in detail the eligibility criteria, selection process, and how you avoid conflict of interest. Perhaps the people who feel you should give money should be tasked with setting up the grant program.

Our PTO has conflicting views on a particular topic. There is a former student that has cancer with siblings in our school. There is a fund set up in his name for help with medical and related expenses, and the community has come together in many ways to support him. Some of our board members feel the PTO should donate money to his cause. Others feel that our by laws and non profit status prevents us from donating to any individual. We have already done 2 fundraisers specifically for him, in which the money went directly to the fund. Can we pull money out of our budget for this? There are others in financial need in our school in similar circumstances. If we can't give money to all of them, how can we pick and choose? I feel like I am constantly being bullied and made to feel like I do not wish to help, so I need to put an end to this asap.