Believe me, if I were you I would have NOT have handled it as well! I fail to see how people buying raffle tickets exhibits support for their cause. Like you said, a letter is far more effective.

That sort of thing is exactly what we're trying to avoid, and this is for just a playground right now! We've been bending over backwards to accomodate everyone, and have been thinking we might try some fundraising during the "off season" around here--in the summer. Hope your situation takes a turn for the better, and that the other group gets a clue!

About a year ago, our district established a non-profit education foundation. The objective is to raise additional monies that would be distributed to our individual schools through a grant program (though they haven't actually distributed any money yet, so the system has not been demonstrated). I was all for the idea since the Foundation was going to focus on corporate donations, grants, and alumni, and was a creative way to generate badly-needed funding. I assumed it wouldn't conflict with the fundraising we do locally with our PTO. All our schools have very active PTO's who do a great deal of good for their students. Our level of parent involvement must be way above average.

Unfortunately, the first campaign the Foundation sponsored was a raffle directed at the current school families. Plus, the raffle was kicked off at the same time when our PTOs traditionally have our major fundraisers. I nearly jumped out of my chair at our second PTO meeting last fall when the School District executive said we all needed to buy raffle tickets so the Foundation could demonstrate that our district has the support of its community. And he was saying this to a room full of about 40 PTO members!! I held my tongue, and my wallet.

I still believe our Foundation has the ability to tap into creative funding sources to the benefit of our schools, but I'm still stinging from that short-sighted remark. If the Foundation wants to demonstrate parent/community support to a grantor, they should be asking for a report from each PTO, not $5 for a raffle ticket.

Thanks for letting me vent. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Tim--Thanks for posting this one! Our nonprofit group is handling a similar situation, except our school has a PTA rather than a PTO. Right now we're raising funds for a playground, but if we're successful, we want to keep going and raise monies for other needs we see in our school, or for programs the school can't afford, like a drama club in the middle school, a school newspaper, etcetera. We'd also like to see the other fundraising projects (sixth grade camping trip, eighth grade final dance, eighth grade trip to Washington DC, etcetera, fall under one heading, so that donors aren't getting "hit" by the same school 6 times.

In our case we have a PTA and they are not focused on fundraising, so the lines are a little more distinct. I can see how it might be a problem in an area where parent involvement is very strong though. It does take a lot of coordinating with already exisitng entities to make sure you don't step on anyone's toes (and right now we're dealing with about a half dozen). Once we get our 501(c)(3) letter of determination in (fingers crossed that we didn't miss anything that would hold it up!) we'll be focusing primarily on foundations and corporations for funds. Naturally our superintendent and BOE have been pretty supportive, but want us to stay clear of causing any trouble in our school. Our PTA has been very resistant to the idea of us doing this, and for some of the reasons stated in the article. We have a new board coming in though, and they seem much more receptive to the idea.

We saw the need for more aggressive and focused fundraising in order to get what we'd like to see our kids have in the schools. In a perfect world the Board of Education would have enough resources to fund everything that the schools should have without raising taxes. (I could get into other reasons BOEs might not have enough funds left to distribite to the schools, but that's a different topic). Tax dollars go for anything, and you pay that increase forever.We see this as a better alternative; giving to a fundraiser is voluntary and it's not permament. You're deciding how much you want to give, and where your money goes. If you can't give one year, you can't give. We are NOT letting the BOE get off scott-free and still fight to have our tax dollars spent less on administration and more on the kids, but we're realistic, and if it's us getting the money so we can have the programs or the kids having nothing at all, we'll do it.