JHB but top me you still earn the koodoos! Whether you are doing ti because you have to or want to you are having to go outside the box. Reality is like I posted someplace else though, the schools are starting to get directly involved in the back pack express fund raising taking the money for themselves. Personally, I think this is a huge mistake on the part of the schools and districts and sends the wrong message. We do a couple of those ourselves in our district. Right or wrong, regardless of whether we support it or not it is becoming more and more common for school districts to do this to flush out their corporate budgets.
The PTO is a better mechanizism for doing not only the fund raisers but in working on how that moeny will be spent. To now have to compete with the school itself, however, sets up potential situations that will eventually cause problems.
As I have often pointed out, whether it is the PTO or the school using our kids as the sales staff, there is something fundementally wrong going on.
We now have two recurring fund raisers (Traditionally back pack expresses) where the parents are doing the sales work not the kids. One is bringing in about 500 a month the other just getting started did 400. We will see just as much money as we normally would have in the course of the year, just not all at one time and no one who doesnt want to be bothered with this doesnt have to be. I should add that back packing or even the parent support like we are trying is not our only source for funding - the other methods keep us afloat while we experiment with new ideas. Not everyone might have the alternate sources to be able to try this.
We have also completed a traditional back pack express (the third of the year I should add - two were mandated by the district and one was ours - the last one) where we have taken in about a thousand. In my opinion that is a failure. Our next direct one will not occur until February and my understanding the district has shot its bolt and can not do another one until next school year.
Too much too soon with not enough support! In looking more closely with those mandated district ones, no school reached anywhere near the full potential as compared to prior years when only the PTOs did this either.
There is a positive side however, I have had several PTO officers from other schools ask me about an idea that was once presented and asked me to see if I could get it launched. A Distict PTO President's Council.
JHB, o maybe you have an opportunity like we have to try a lot of new things - out of the box stuff - who knows we may revolutionize the entire process [img]smile.gif[/img]
The double edged sword of PTO fundraising-the door-to-door sales! While we discourage the kids from going "door-to-door" and have eliminated sales incentives we still have the just plain old aggravation of contacting friends and family to buy products. This year there were so many organizations doing sales at the same time as ours, I'm surprised at our success. It would be great to move away from these fundraisers, but we have yet to find something that can generate the kinds of funds ours does. So the flipside would be cutting the budget--don't think too many would be happy with that either. We just keep looking for ideas and trying new things hoping to find that wonderful event that makes us the money we need to fund programs, keeps our kids from becoming junior salespeople, and doesn't require a lot of volunteer effort....I can dream can't I?
Dave, actually we will still have our two sales fundraisers per year (which is the max allowed). It's just that the PTO doesn't "own" them anymore - the school does. We'll still help choose the fundraiser, provide volunteers to run it, count the money, distribute the goods, etc. But the incoming funds will go into the school's activity account, under the discretion of the Principal.
Note -we are fine with this. The funds will still be used for the same type of extras, and we have a great relationship with the principal. But, we as a group, will not have nearly as much funds per year so need to be very careful as what we decide to pay for.
We are having the same problems. We depend on a brochure sale because it brings in atleast 24000 bucks, noone likes it thou. The only problem is replacing it with other stuff more designed for what your school really wants to achieve. We are thinking about trying out paper recycling and have thought of having a movie night every month for 5 dollars a ticket but the kids can 'earn' tickets from their teachers.
This really is a tough one. We just did our first catalog fundraiser and earned twice as much as we did selling candy but watched our participation drop by 30%. This really hurt. Not because of the lost profits that those kids could have generated but because 50% of our school didn't participate in the PTO fundraiser. 50% of our students qualify for reduced lunch or similar programs and you have to feel that many of these families just could not afford to participate.
I think there is a place for 'traditional' fundraising but at the same time I have a real issue with the PTO check book being tossed out as the answer. I really believe in doing more for less and that means beating the bushes and asking for help from the community. We try very hard to keep activities, field trips, etc. affordable for everyone. My philosophy is why buy something that someone may give you for free.
Good job! We too are getting out of the traditional box, as most people on here that have read my posts know.
We just completed our Hravest Festival. We didnt make much money (in fact we lost money) but the learning experience has been invaluable and already I have a new committee for the Spring Festival of a dozen people each with an assigned area of responsibility. We already have a list of what when right and why and what went wrong and why and this was all done in a non confrontational manner.
Now why is this important to what JHB ha said. Cause we are not using our kids as sales staff! We have refussed all back pack express fund raisers. The whys of this has been covered in other posts on this thread and others so I wont go into them here again.
I am glad to see one district getting the hint too and stopping their district sponosred fund raisers, however the trend as I have been researching is the other direction.
Instead of eliminating the waste in their own budgetts districts are figuring our ways to cash in on the back pack express to make money. I think as this progresses more and more parents are going to be figuring out just what this is really costing them! And the parents are the ones carrying the burden!
Recently my principal and I discussed a Student fee being applied next year. For several years now the schools have been authorized to do this up to $20 per student. We havent although we are one of the poorest schools in the district. We can both see the problem of collecting even a minimum of $5, it may well turn teachers into debt collectors to start with. So we are looking for alternatives to the reasons why this fee may need to be applied now instead of waiting till next year!
Again going outside the box for the funding, I have a group out doing long term recurring donations of the items that this fee would be used for, so far so good, we have promisary notes from enough businesses to handle next year and we are now working on longer term up to 3 years out! And not one student has been asked to do a thing here to get these funds!
I know Tim thinks I am sometimes anal with this, and I have to admit I am, but it is my hope that everyone starts thinking outside the box for rasing funds - target those tens of thousands of people that we never hit up with the back pack express. Remember there are things the PTO can do that the schools cant it is part of why we exist in the first place. Get people involved, give them guidance as to direction, but let them do the jobs you asked them to do, you will be amazed at what happens and how quickly you can just start trashing most of that "fundraiser" snail mail you get every week.
