PTO Today

Good day all. I'm curious how many of you have used websites to conduct fundraising? If so, how did it go? Who did you use? What went right or wrong? Thanks!

Are there no active ways to earn money for schools via the Web? I'm surprised.

A similar thread was posted a while back and the feedback seemed to indicate that parent groups arent' all that interested in web fundraising. In our case, we need our primary fundraiser to be a one-time big hit, so we can be assured of our budget and take the focus off fundraising. We do participate in a couple of ongoing fundraisers (ex: printer cartridbges), but those are supplemental, not the primary source of funding. The catalog company we've used has a website and we've typically made a few hundred dollars off internet sales, but that's a pittance compared to the dollars we get from the paper-based orders.

Preograms like on-line malls that give a kickback to the schools sound like "no brainers" on the surface. But in our experience, they've not proven to be successful. To make decent $$ off that sort of thing, you need to change the fundamental shopping behavior of your parents. Not an easy thing to do at all. You have to scream and scream and it still doesn't sink in. You just sound money hungry. Frankly, that type of fundraising isn't worth the effort when there are easier ways to make budget.

Interesting. Looks like most of the online sites give very little back for each purchase. If each sale online generated, say, a 40-50% return, $10-15, would this help generate interest for quick returns?

[ 02-16-2006, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: Timothy McLain ]

Not for us.

Not for us, and its the turnaround times (some take months)
There's a glutton of eMalls, click thrus, website affilites. Unfortunately most a about a reputable as the Scrip co and chain letters.

Now ads (banner or rotating) on a website just adds a whole new can of worms.