It's a tough balance - we know that without those funds, we couldn't provide the services that we do. Our PTO has worked hard to avoid many catalog fundraisers. Our experience has been that the items sold are often cost prohibitive in a tight economy, so few items are sold, which results in limited profit. We do participate in Market Day, a monthly grocery sale, and the funds raised are earmarked for teachers to use for classroom supplies. We hold an annual book fair with Scholastic, and those funds are used for new books in the library. Our family activities (Fall Festival, Spring Carnival) are designed to be either free or revenue neutral. Our "Big" fundraiser, which generates the revenues for our grant funding, our Accelerated Reader reading program, including prizes, and the family activities that are free is a discount card. We design the cards as a PTO, working with area businesses, and use a local printer to provide the product. This year we had to turn businesses away that wanted to be included because we were simply out of room on the card. Ours includes reusable discounts, is printed front and back in black on a white, plastic, credit card sized card, and we sell it for $5. After prizes (this year we gave a student a Kindle Fire) and other expenses (Printing 5,000 cards cost us less than $1,400.) we've netted just under $7,800. Parents love to sell them because they are inexpensive and functional. Businesses love being included because we don't charge them an "advertising" fee. For our elementary student body of less than 400 students, it works out beautifully for us.

I think fundraising is a necessary evil when it comes to finding money for the schools to offer programs, etc. for the school and community. With all the budget cuts we try to survive best we can. No one is looked down on for not supporting our fundraisers but how do you pay for field trips that students can't afford to go on? Canned food drives are not fund raisers since they are a service project our students participate in to show how helping others is a positive out look in life and reaps it's own rewards. Sports organizations are another issue all together. Maybe your taxes should be used to help with Youth Organizations. Are you willing to pay more taxes for this? I also found it funny that you the "PTO Today" have a fundraiser with Little Caesar's running across your screen. Hum, why do you support that and then say there is to much fundraising requests? I think you just do what you can and not feel bad because you can't do everything.

As was said by another poster, fundraisers are a must. We cannot do the work that we do for our students and our teachers without them.

At our school, the PTO tries to provide a service along with fundraising. We sell spirit shirts to our students and parents with a minimal mark-up. Many of our students would not be able to afford school spirit shirts without these events. Our Fall and Spring festivals have only a $5 per person armband charge to help recover some of our cost for renting the bouncy houses and obstacle courses. At those festivals, we do silent auctions. Our business community wants to support our school, and our kids get the benefit. Those who "win" the items get a good deal for their money. As for the "label-cutting" fundraisers, yes they are fundraisers where we "ask" for something; but those labels are something that will be thrown away if we don't ask. Those "labels" provide our school the most money with the least volunteer time than any event we do. Plus, more of our kids are parents in involved. There's something to be said for parental involvement.

Our PTO makes sure our money is earmarked. We reward one student every nine weeks (and a guest of their choice) from each class who has gone above and beyond with a special lunch. We are planning a family reading night with special guest readers and lots of fun. During book fair time, every student in our school gets a book chosen by their teacher. We provide equipment for our PE classes and improvements to the playgrounds. It is my hope that as a first time PTO president that I convey to our parents and community where their funds are going.

Can fundraising become too much? Yes, I think it can when kids are sent home with flyers for selling items that we wouldn't otherwise buy. But, the job of the PTO officers is to look at our options and see what our kids and parents will become most excited about.

Our group has adopted a policy of defining every event as one of three things. 1. A funraiser. 2. A service (a free event) or 3. Revenue Neutral (charge only as an attempt to recover expenses). Attaching a definition to each event up-front helps everyone involved, INCLUDING PARENTS, to know, in advance, what they are getting into. It is important for us to have many free events and services and to let parents know that these are the things that their funraising dollars provide. We are trying to get down to 2 big fundraisers a year, our Walk-a-Thon and our Auction. We do well with the Walk-A-Thon even though it amounts to a straight cash donation, it is associated with a healthy activity. We are young in the auction game, but we feel that we will do well with it.

I think it is important to raise funds through out the year. If we don't sell a bag of popcorn at movie night then we will not be able to supply popcorn at the next movie night. The cost of doing anything has sored in recent years.
Most parents don't mind if they feel that they are getting something of value in return for their donations.
It can feel a bit much with all of the flyer and emails being sent home. The beauty is that you can choose the one(s) you want to participate in. As a parent, pick the fundraisers that you like, choose the events you want to attend and if you feel it's too, at the movie night bring your own popcorn.

Yes , There is way too many fundraisers. Our kids were sent home the first day of school with a fundraiser, now they want money for a Halloween activity, Then UNICEF,Then food baskets for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Not to mention all of the things the teachers want. and the School pictures, then the class parties, then the sports teams start gathering money. Some times it makes me wonder why we are paying taxes. I helped raise over $2,000.00 for our group last year, and they did not ear mark any of it for a single thing. Just into General funds. Good Luck getting me to do fund raising this year!
Deanise