I had the same experience. We have thank you letters from donations for last year and no idea who collected the items or where they came from. Anyway this year I've added a now coordinator position specifically designed for a mom who can't volunteer at the school but can do work from home. Its a donation coordinator. Every donation received must be given to her for documentation. We will have a database of all businesses approached, who approached them and what was donated. We'll be able to use the list in the future. And just as important we are focusing on involving a parent who did not feel they would otherwise be able to participate in the group (in the case of our current coordinator, she works nites and will never be able to attend meetings)but she feels like she is actively participating.

The PTO usually helps throw a small commencement celebration for the 5th grade, nowhere near $1000. I understand that the woman had pulled pork sandwiches and (nonalcoholic) margaritas..and she excluded the parents (imagine the phonecalls the principal received!). I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt when I say I believe she had good intentions, but a heck of a lot of moxie! Anyway, I am trying to take some preventive measures to minimize this sort of thing, would appreciate any suggestions. We have more than one maverick in the herd, unfortunately. I've unwittingly stumbled upon this knowledge when I did approach a business about donating: "What, again? We just gave you xyz." Lovely surprise, sigh.

Another interesting situation. I'm curious as to how much your PTO usually spends on 5th grade commencement. $1,000 to start is a lot of cash. Did she overspend on the party? If not, and this was going to come out of PTO funds anyway, I would think it is somewhat of a wash. In otherwords, would you have spent that much from your acct., and then replenished it later via the $1,000 contributor? If so, he just donated a little early.

I don't agree with her somewhat sneeky method though. Hopefully she meant well and won't do it again. What I'm now curious about is how do you prevent a possible fraud like this from happening? What prevents any person from typing up PTO stationery and passing themselves off as a rep and pocketing the goods. Sad to say, our tax exempt letters are pretty freely distributed and not really kept under lock and key. (looks like that might change). Maybe the idea about notifying businesses with business cards and a special letter just might be the ticket. I have so many things I'm now doing to cover my butt, my pants don't fit!

RE the NSF check . . . one last ditch effort may be to write a repayment agreement yourself and ask this person to sign it. (I, _______________, recognize that I have a financial obligation to _____________ PTO in the amount of $_________ ($600 plus any bank charges you were assessed) and agree to make monthly payments beginning on the 10th of _______, 2003, in the amount of $25.00 until such time as the full amount has been repaid. Date & Sign. - - - I am not a lawyer, but from watching People's Court I think that covers all the basics????????) Present it in as nonconfrontational way as possible, but let her/him know that if they don't agree to it, or if they don't uphold their end of the bargain (i.e. repaying it when they say they will) that you will take it to your local district attorney's office and turn it over to them.

Bad checks don't only affect the kids that the money was intended to serve, it is criminal. I think if you have tried several times you have done everything you can to keep the embarassment level down, etc., but if it is allowed to continue who suffers in the end? The kids!

I don't know if this will help. But we have Letterhead and business cards. That way the businesses know the request is coming from the official parent group and that they will be thanked publically, they like that. Since we are 501c3 they can also write it off. Which they also like.

I'm sure the parent was very proud and had the best intentions. Definately nervy using the PTO name. You may want to use it to your advantage and boost their ego and see if they could use their talents for the whole school.

Our fifth graders handle the school's recycling and make money that way for their celebration but we don't worrying about them taking away a potential fundraiser from us, it just something they do.

I've thought about having our PTO join the Chamber of Commence to network with local businesses. Anyone ever try that or see any roadblocks?

There's not a lot you can do at this point, but I would make sure that the principal and teachers know that they need to go through the PTO to do those kind of activities, then the board knows what is being asked for. Teachers just asking parents to do things like the graduation without going through the PTO is going to always conflict.