We are a small private school. At the beginning of the year, we set a goal for our parents. $375 (in profits) per family needs to be raised. We provide plenty of opportunity to meet that goal. If they do not raise it, they are required to pay the difference at the end of the year. Believe it or not, in our first year of implementation, those non-participators sent in over $6,000.
We started an opt-out program last year that allows parents that don't need the fundraiser items like gift wrap or who simply don't have time to sell to make a direct donation to our PTO. This generated a lot of income and as far as we can tell has not adversely affected the fundraisers. We think that most of the families that chose to make the donation did not support the fundraisers so hopefully we'll have a larger percentage of folks supporting PTO-sponsored programs.
On the cover sheet for our fundraiser last year, the person who was running it added a paragraph at the end that said something like this. "This is our major fundraiser for the year. If you would prefer not to have your child participate, please consider making a donation to support our school. The PTA/PTO is a tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code, and contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Checks should be made payable to PTA/PTO and returned to your child's teacher." I know that some checks were generated because of this, but I don't know how many or for how much. I do know this, though--with the 2 other schools I was/am involved in, they did nothing like this. And got nothing as a result!
As the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained!
How do you handle a parent(s) that don't want to sell your fundraisers? Frankly whether they do or not...is their preference. One mom asked that it not be sent home at all, but we don't have the time to go through the list of every parent who doesn't want something sent home.
I want to tell them to just pitch it, but was wondering if anyone had a "form letter" for this sort of thing.
