I am located in Iowa and although our "gift" item sales were down, cookie dough sales and cheesecake and such are still selling strong!! I think planning is the key anytime and having a cookie dough/baking goods food fundraisers now is the best time. Many people with purchase their holiday baking items and save time later...pop them from freezer to oven and BAMB they are done!

We are just gearing up to start our annual cookie dough fundraiser with MC Fundraisers, last year we made $37,000.00 from cookie dough and cheesecakes!
Approx 500 kids, we encourage them to each sell 10 boxes and all but a few met that goal. Others sold more and made up the difference!


I think they are also in the yellow pages here as well..(I think)

Lisa,

You are right. I was interested in discovering how schools are coping with the recession in relation to their fundraising sales. However, I do stand by my statement. Even if a PTO chairperson is told by a company that none of their products come from a particular vendor, how does that person know for a fact that is the truth? Many of these products are made by one or two vendors and then packaged under a private label. It only makes sense, why would a company go overseas to just find a dozen or so products to put on their catalog. Also, many items used in previous prize programs came from one major vendor. Gee, it is nothing to be ashamed of. that is just the way it worked.

However, that was not the intent of my post. In tough times, it will be interesting to find out how communities responded to fund raising sales. Good or bad, let everyone know. I am hoping it more good than bad!

Hi all-

Just a reminder to all that we want to keep the tone on our message boards friendly regardless of circumstances.

So when posting, before you hit the submit button, please re-read your message and make sure:

- you are asking a question that the answers will help your parent group (not promote or negate a vendor)

- you know that the content is factually correct

- you re-read your message: is the tone friendly and does the content contribute to the overall good of the conversation? If the answer is no, please delete it.

Thanks for your help with ensuring that our message boards are the best resource possible for parent group leaders!

~ Lisa

Wrong Again, Middle Ager....Innsbrook did NOT use Giftco as a distributor, we thoroughly checked this out BEFORE our sale. (Once again, incorrect info....let's see YOUR info on this)

Perhaps the recession has slowed SOME schools in SOME areas, but until you do your research thoroughly you might want to stop and think about "bashing" sales that historically, are the BEST types of fundraisers to do. (Ie...see all the researched literature and info on this website for future reference)

If you wanted information from us....why not post something like...

"How are your fall sales going this year? Would love to hear feedback from everyone!" (period.)

Well, our fundraiser actually ends today so we don't have our numbers yet; I'm projecting having most of the forms returned and verified by Friday, until then I just don't know.
I do know that our son's order alone is over $300 though and I'm hoping his isn't the only one!

PTO Mindy,

I am glad your Innisbrook sale is doing well. I guess everyone should use Innisbrook and that would be the end of it. I am just asking for feedback on how this fall's sales are doing. To deny that the recession has not affect school fundraising is silly. In addition, the major supplier to this industry, Giftco, went out of business. Sorry to bust your bubble, but they also imported for Innisbrook, so please do not deny that. If it was just Giftco, fine, but other suppliers and distributors have gone out of business. If business was good, why would they close their doors?

Now that we know your Innisbrook sale went well, perhaps other people would like to share their stories. Again, with the current economic situation, I am curious if schools are meeting their goals with their fund raising sales. Perhaps school fund raising is recession proof and every school is having a banner year!