PTO Today

Hello. I am hoping to get some opinions and suggestions. I am in my first experience with a PTO. My son just started kindergarten in a public school. I will be attending my first meeting at the end of this month. I just got our fundraiser paperwork sent home. I am very unhappy with the wrap up event for our fundraiser. It is a big party during school hours that can only be attended by children who sell at least ten items. I think that is too harsh for the children who are unable to meet that goal. It also puts undue pressure on parents to buy items if they cannot sell them so that their kids won't miss the party. I voiced my concern to the PTO president who basically told me if I had some better idea to come forward. They see nothing wrong with leaving some children out. Those kids get to watch a movie and have popcorn. Big whoop! Any suggestions on how I can convince them that this isn't a good practice and that it shouldn't be done any more after this one?
Sincerely, Arleen

That is one reason I've never supported rewards for sales. Some kids parents can afford to ensure they are recipients of the incentives and others simply cannot. How many children are actually going out and selling these things. Of course it is a comment on the parents ability to sell the stuff or buy things themselves. I know many PTOs say this increases their sales markedly--I guess I just never thought it was worth it.
I'm all for a wrap up party--but it should be a success story for everyone. I'm not sure how you communicate that-especially since things seem to be written on the wall as to how it will unfold. Good luck.

d

You know a lot of families don't have the ability to take fundraising forms to work and sell to hundreds of people, and with the prices of most items now(and the rising costs of the basics we all need just to get by)it's a struggle for some families to be able to purchase items. Then there are families with multiple children-how do you divide that up???

I'm fundraiser chair for our middle school and we are offering incentives, but I tried to make it as reasonable and attainable as possible. We are purchasing a variety of gift cards from several businesses that appeal to middle school age students and doing a drawing. For every 5 items they sell, they get their name in the drawing, so anyone who sells 5 items has a shot at winning. We are also doing another drawing in which eligibility is based on having your form and money in on time and correct. Participation in our fundraisers is voluntary and we are very clear on that to our families, we know that's not everyone's "thing".

There are ways to reward without it being so blatantly obvious as to who participated and who didn't.

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

I agree with your perspective. I'm OK with incentives -- and the fact is that they definitely do drive sales and profits -- but not in the format your group is using.

If the leading sellers get an iPod -- so be it. If the leading class gets a pizza party -- OK. But leaving the lower individual sellers behind [I]during the school day[/I] while 60% of the school has some party -- doesn't feel right to me. Feels pretty awful, actually. I'd have a big problem with that as a parent.

Tim

I am the head of our fundraising as well for our school. I don't think I agree with the party on that sense either. Unfortunately, some people can't afford to help out with fundraisers. Unfortunately, some parents can afford it, but refuse to do the fundraiser. (my parents were one of those) But what I have a hard time is why do the kids that can or do make the effort to at least try have to go down for the ones that don't. But that is my personal opinion and in our school I make sure to include everyone I can.

Last year we did the the incentive thing as well. For every 5 items a child sold, during the sale they would receive a "gift" The fundraiser we used last year was dog tags. But we thought about using the silicone bracelets and such. The helpful part of that is the kids all see the other kids having something new and cool. And they say "i sold 5 things and got this" So then the kid goes home and says I want one too!!!! See the pattern??

We also used the teacher incentive program. If the teacher has at least 50% of their classroom participate, the teacher receives a gift. Sometimes, depending on the fundraiser rep, and what kind of repor you have, they will support this and pay for that incentive as well. You will have to keep track of this part though.


We do, however, recognize the students on each grade level who participates and succeeds with the highest amount sold.

Feel free to contact me with any quesitons, I have been doing this for years and have lots of ideas and connections.

This is my first year as a fundraising chairperson. I am also the PTO President.
Our school will be having it's catalog fundraiser (the only one for the year) at the end of September. Our fundraising company also tried talking us into a party for those who sold over 10 items. That will NOT be happening at our school! As it is each child who sells at least 1 item will get some sort of prize. Prizes getting better with larger amount of sales. Our PTO has chosen to offer a prize of a Nintendo Wii to the child with the highest sales. Also, the top seller of each grade gets to have a catered lunch with the Principal. In addition to all of this we went to a local day spa and they have donated gift cards to go to the teacher of the class with the highest sales and the parent of the student with the highest sales.
I totally agree that excluding students isn't the way to go. Me personally if I found this out I wouldn't sell just to be stubborn

Michelle

Our school district superintendent received so many complaints about unfair PTO fundraising practices that a meeting was held with every principal in the district to inform them that the PTO should have a school wide goal and if the school wide goal is met, each child would be allowed to attend the fund raiser party. It's just wrong to extort money from parents to buy fundraiser items and to make money at the expense of hurting childrens' feelings. In many cases, the child who didn't sell anything worked harder trying to do so than those whose parents could afford to purchase the items to make the individual goal. Many PTO groups are so insensitive!

Our lower el school principal sets a goal for the profit we need to make as a school. If that goal is met, then the entire school is rewarded with an inflatables party, complete with a D.J. Each grade level gets a certain amount of time, so that kindergarten is not out with our third graders.
As a PTO, there are two things we do to balance the prizes. For Cash for Trash (boxtops for education, etc), I changed it from the "class with the most items" to each class having a goal and earning a prize when it is reached. The goal is an average of so many items per students. This way, when Jacob can bring in 100 items, but Alyssa brings in 5, they all count together towards the goal.

The other area was in our magazine sale. Everyone who sold at least one subscription earned an entry into the grand prize drawing. That prize also changed to being more family oriented than for an individual. One year we awarded an annual family pass to our county's recreation building, including swimming and ice skating.

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Debbie
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. Change begins with you."

Our fundraiser (uncle jerrys tees) provides incentives for us so we don't have to, however, we still reward the top 3 sellers with a gift card for Walmart...

I agree it's not fair to leave some of the kids out of the wrap up party; esp since the above writers are right; it's not the kid's faults if they can't sell as many items or any! So, the best way is to just reward the top 3...out of 200 kids last year we only had 40 participate...the idea for the fundraiser was for the playground, which mainly benefits the elementary, so we had a "free gym" period for middle and high school with popcorn and music, even if they didnt participate. That way, everyone got something out of it....we are hoping this year will be more participation...

I believe schools and Parent/Teacher Organizations would dramatically increase involvement not only with fundraising but other activities if parents and students feel they are being treated fairly. Sometimes it just takes good discussion to open the eyes of others (schools, PTO's) as they may not have realized how many people they were excluding. With fundraising, team work is definitely a more positive approach.