Thank you all for your insights - they have been a tremendous help! We are in the process of working on how to clearly define our groups (within our school and district), and are going to focus on other ways we can support the larger school community and work together (teacher appreciation, school social events, etc.). This particular partnership won't work for us now, but we have other ideas. Thank you all again!

Your group sounds very much like a group we have here in our town. They struggle with existing on the same campus too and with trying to create a campus which is equal to all it's students.

Actually, your PTA should not be participating in a joint fundraiser in the first place as PTA has strict rules about "co-mingling" of funds. It makes both of your bookkeeping trickier at tax time too. I applaud you for trying to come together, but joint fundraisers are not the way to do it.

Personally I don't see the need to work jointly on this fundraiser. It sounds as though historically the gift wrap fundraiser is the district PTO's domain. There are many different types of fundraisers that can be run, even simultaneously, and profit. So I don't see why this one group (PTA) wants to jointly run the fundraiser. Especially with the problems of the past, I would recommend not running it jointly. Let your "PTO" group run the gift wrap fundraiser as you always have, and let the PTA group do whatever they want.

The only concern that I can see here is if this PTA group decides to do it anyway. If that happens then you end up competing, which could cause even more issues. Since your PTO group is a district group, I am guessing that it was setup by a hgih administrator, possibly the Superintendant, or someone of that nature? If this is the case, then I would, after politely turning down the offer to jointly run the fundrasier, have someone explain to the Principal of the school with this PTA that the district is trying to ensure that no other groups, such as this PTA, runs a similar fundraiser at the same time.

In the end this decision may cause continued discontent with the PTA group, but not running it jointly will likely be for the best. If you do decide to run it jointly, then all of the other schools in the district will have the right to request the same thing. That would be a disastor.

Good luck,
PresidentJim

That is certainly a challenging arrangement. This might sound silly, but to me, one of the problems is that the enrichment group is called a "PTO". There's no official definition of "PTO", so you can certainly use that to label your group. But often on this message board we read about tension between the PTA and PTO groups. Maybe the name is a source of conflict right out of the gate.

Do the two groups have overlapping missions and agendas? If so, that's also probably a source of tension. Even though your group is a district program, your parents might not understand the relationship, so they get confused when they see info about the PTO and the PTA. That could lead to people taking sides, even if only subliminally. Both groups are asking for support from the same pool of people (both in volunteer time and financial support). If your customers don't clearly understand the distinction between your two groups, they will see the two groups as competing, or perhaps an unnecessary duplicaiton of effort.

You asked for tips on how to run a successful joint fundraiser. Without clearing the air and clearly deliniating which group is responsible for what, I'm not sure you can work jointly. A few years ago. our superintendent hired someone to help the PTO's raise money through district-wide projects. It was a disaster. The individual PTO's hadn't asked for the help and felt offended by this paid consultant. Her ideas weren't any better than anything the PTOs could come up with on their own. There was just too much overlap in the work she was trying to do and what the PTOs did on their own. She didn't last long.

Good luck!

Hi, Sorry if this is a dupe, I couldn’t find a reference.:confused:

Any suggestions on how to successfully manage a joint annual fundraiser with a PTA despite some hostilities with our PTO program?

Our PTO has run a gift wrap fundraiser for several years. A few years ago our PTA asked if they could also sell gift wrap and agreed to use a different vendor. Now, they want to use our vendor and work with us on the fund raiser.

This fall we barely made the sales amount to secure free shipping, but I have concerns:

* the sales rep initiated the proposal - I'd rather see what we and the PTA want/need before chatting with a rep. and locking in one company.
* our PTO loses fundraising income if we compete with identical products, and school staff & families have to choose who to support.
* jeopardizing our PTA-community-building efforts if it isn't well coordinated, or we don't clearly defining the agreement.
* our group becoming the PTA's work force. (see background - we need to balance our hours with classroom, administration & larger school community.)
* increased administration with coordination (accounting, tracking & delivering orders, policies for returned checks, ...)
* and more...

Here is some background - our PTO is a district program of enrichment based on co-operative parent involvement. Six elementary schools feed into our location within a public k - 6 elementary school. Entry is by blind lottery, but there is still a sense that "I didn't get picked to be in the program", "why do they get <insert enrichment or teacher/parent initiated activity>?", and other "we-vs-them" attitudes that we are working to overcome. Participants are required to do 80 hours of volunteer time a year (up to 20 PTA hours count) & meet a fundraising amount (write a check or fund raise with scrip, escrip, gift wrap, and other options) to pay for field trips, a spanish teacher, incursions, mini-courses, etc. Most of our families are PTA members (1/3 of the whole PTA) & lead many PTA committees.

We jointly ran a scrip program with PTA, but last year they wanted out (claiming the return wasn't worth the effort, but couldn't state the return nor the time invested). We had a challenging meeting going through money & inventory, but our PTO pushed to determine an exact amount to buy them out & we all signed an agreement that it was a fair split to avoid bad feelings or rumors about it. I don't want to have to do that again!