Corey24 Our old PTA did avon , it was ran through a local person. When our PTO started and we were looking at Fundraisers I asked our old PTA officers about AVon. Their response was to run far and fast from it, it seems that they had to sort all of the orders that took alot of time .The rep brought in all of the product and said here you go, I guess if you had a rep willing to sort it and take a little lower profit it would work. They all agreed that it was not worth the effort or time.TOO MUCH WORK-not enough profit. the truth is we are looking for fundraisers that give us the most profit with least amount of work.THey did ALOT of fundraising and it was the only time that they had to sort the orders.Not sure thats the answer you wanted but that was our school's story!

[ 07-19-2004, 08:09 AM: Message edited by: pals ]

Hi. I am a PTA President and a fundraising & programs rep. I do not want to spam here so I am not stating the name of the company, I am only giving this info to show that I have some experience in what I am about to say.
I have to agree with what a few others have said, nothing against using a fundraising company out of your area (our school has done it), however, you will get alot more out of using one close. Make sure the warehouse is close and not just the rep. You will have a better kick off because someone the kids don't know will come in and get them excited, if anything happens they can run up the road to take care of it, an end of the fundraiser party, etc... blast party they are all called diff things, is usually offered when using someone in town rather than out of town.
Just my 2 cents, but even when I talk to people about the company I do work for, I tell them what they gain when they are close and what they lose by using me when they live too far (another state).

Oh, cookie dough we have done the past 3 years and had awesome luck with. We do the letter thing, we start pick up betw 1 and 3 depending on when the dough is dropped off and we stay until 8 for working parents. In the letter it states parents must pick up, no sending home with kiddos because it is too heavy and if it's not picked up by 8 it gets donated to the local food bank. We also say in the letter we can absolutely NOT store it anywhere.

Good luck to you all and I hope your 2004-5 year goes awesome!!!
Stef

I just found this site and would like anyone in Northern California to know that we help with school carnivals. Yes we are a company but got into this when my wife and I helped out at a local school carnival two years ago (my wife is a sub.) The school took in $2500.00 but had to pay out $2200.00 for stock and games neting only $300.00, the carnival was only open for five hours and no outside flyers were used and the games were only .25 cents each. But when we helped out the net went up to over $1000.00 plus. If you need help or want any information on what to do we would love to help if we can! Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Hope to help out. Thank you for your time. Larry

Ptoprez...you may have misunderstood or I'm just confused. You can call other schools, talk to their PTO/A fundraiser chair and ask them if they have done a brochure sale before and who they used and what they thought. With brochure sales your PTO won't be putting out any money to run it, and if you are the company your using is crooked. Like I said previous, we use a local company, I have 3 of them bugging me to sign with them for this fall right now. All it is, is a book they sell items from and get prizes, on a basic level. We made a 50%profit from it and brought in 25k. We are a school of 593 k-4. Depending on the size is how much you make obviously, but it's still a great way to make a large amt of money. With local companies the benefits are (now granted I've not used a national so these might not really be benefits hahaha) if I have an order that is broken, missing or someone wants to reorder something I can call the company and have it at the school that day or the following. They come and have the orders seperated by classroom and deliver them to the classroom. We get a party from them with games food and moonwalks for kids that sell 10items or more. I found out about one when I went to another school's carnival in the city, we used them the following year. The next year I had 7 local companies contact me [img]smile.gif[/img]

We use a mom and pop shop - Gecker. They do a great job for us. Cally Cathy Geckler at 800-788-7471 and let her know I recommended you (McGee).

Also, we have been in talks with Midland Fundraising for a couple years - they are also a small shop. They seem reall customer oriented, but we have not switches as we are very happy with Geckler. Call them at 800-624-3050.

We're going to switch from Innisbrook to Sally Foster this year. We looked at many books and everyone seemed to like that best. Market Day came in a close 2nd with their book. They're getting into the fundraising business - outside of food, you might want to check them out. They came to school this month with candy bars. You sell them for $1 and they're 50% profit BUT you get a $1 coupon for Market Day on the wrapper. So, in essence it's free (if there is such a thing). I thought that was a neat idea.