We tried this, but it was before my time so I don't know the particulars. I do know they made far less than hoped. My concern about a straight check-writing campaign is this: all the money would come from mom & dad. When we sell something, we can take the glossy brochure to Aunt Sue, Cousin Tom, the people at work, and the next door neighbor. They all contribute to the $75 in sales per participating kid (our experience).
With a direct check writing campaign, it seems to me it would be very awkward to ask for $ from the same people you would sell to. So... mom and dad give $30, the same amount they spent on wrapping paper last year. Unfortunately, the $30 is less than the $37.50 the PTO would have earned from the catalog sale. And, even though some people purposefully choose to not participate in a catalog sale, I think it's overly optimistic to think participation would skyrocket enough to make up for the per student shortfall. Does that make sense?
Next fall, we are doing a pledge-drive tied to a Walk A Thon. Sure, it's still a direct donation, but there's a hook to pull in the outside donors: sponsor the student per laps. The kid can take the pledge form to Aunt Sue and Cousin Tom and ask, not exactly for $$, but for their support in walk a thon. We are also offering prizes to the kids as incentives. Prizes that only the school and PTO can offer like having your teacher take the winner out to lunch. Marketing is definately the key to success in this type of fundraising. But at least, by having a theme, maybe the donations will be spread a bit furhter than just mom & dad's checkbook.
We did this for the first time last year. I would call it successful. We gave our parents a "fundraising packet" is what we called it. We had a letter explaining that we are running our fundraisers together and we asked the parents to pick the one that they wanted to participate in -we explained the profit the school would receive from each one and the prizes that would come with each fundraiser. Our choices were:
Catalog Sale - 50% profit - prize brochure included
Cookie Dough and other foods - 40% profit - prize brochure included
Write a Check - 100% profit - for those families who would prefer all monies go towards the school programs. Our prizes were an ice cream party (for a $10 donation). And for every $20 donated, the child received a "non-uniform" day (which went over very well at our K-5th grade school). If your school doesn't have uniforms - there are many "free" prizes you could offer. No Homework passes. Lunch in the staff lounge. Extra library or computer time...etc. The top givers could get lunch with the principle or their favorite teacher or really anything you can think of.
My goal last year was to get all our fundraising done in one swoop and focus on monthly family events for the kids. I wanted parents to forget that we even did fundraising because it was right at the beginning of the year and we didn't keep sending home another catalog of stuff to sell. We didn't quite make budget doing it this way - but I do think the parents liked the choices.
At our family events (game night, movie night, arts and crafts night, chuck e. cheese, and science night), we sold refreshments at a very low cost and made a tiny profit at each one that made up for what we didn't make on our official fundraisers. The parents didn't even feel like that was even a fundraiser, cause we had a lot of "fun" instead of giving "funds".
Anyway...I think giving it as an option makes parents happy. And for those that support catalog and cookie dough sales - they will continue to sell anyway. That's just what I think.
Don't forget to give them a tax receipt since it will be a donation to a 501c organization.
another note on that line just figuring out that to cover our fundraisers for the whole year we would need a average of 52.83 per family to not do any fundraisers.
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
We haven't done it, it seems like a great idea but since we only have about half of our families participate in fundraisers due to the economic situations in our area. Just concern that if we make say 175.00 off of one family as profit on a fundraiser (we have several who do this much) would that family pick up that amount or donate around 25.00-50.00 meaning we would need alot more particpation. Things to thing about?
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Our PTO is interested in trying a Check Writing Campaign in place of a sales event. If anyone has done one of these before and has advice for us we would really appreciate it!!
