My kids are in public school, but I've had various friends at private schools (Catholic School, local private school, local private charter school). I'm sure there are a variety of circumstances, but it happens that in my friends' schools the parent groups act more as a volunteer arm of the school and are not separate entities.
The one who had kids in a small Catholic school helped with fundraisers for all the stuff we typically talk about here, plus a new roof, plus funds to suppliment tuition of scholarship students, plus anything else you can think of. The school controlled the actual funds.
Two others with whom I'm close to now have their kids in private school. They don't seem to do as much general fundraising as the other, but what they do is still ultimately on the school's behalf.
I'm sure there are other models. Hopefully some members involved in private schools will respond. But from my limited view, I don't know why you would set up a separate financial entity in such a situation. Instead I'd work on what the purpose of the parent group is and make sure that they had a reasonable amount of input into these events and fundraising activities.
We are organizing a new parent association in our private, non profit, 501(c)(3), school. I am currently researching how these associations are organized and I need to find out how other private schools do this. Is a separate, 501 (c)(3) created or are PTO's formed under the school's non profit status? If the PTO is not a separate non-profit, who does the fundraising? Who controls the fundraising dollars, the parent organization, or the school's governing body? Samples of by-laws would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!
Thank-you, everybody. This website has been a great help so far.
