Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m not as careful as I should be with my kids’ backpacks. They come home form school, pull their lunchboxes out, and then toss the packs in the hall closet, which is where they’ll sit until it’s time for school the next morning. (My kids are little, so homework is not yet a nightly activity.)

They do get “Thursday Folders” each week, stuffed full of corrected homework papers, new homework to do, art projects, the school newsletter, the class newsletter, library newsletter, the phys ed newsletter, lunch menus, and numerous fliers for boy scouts, learn-to-skate lessons, 4H Father Daughter dance, you-name-it. (The trees that died…)

Now, I’ve got four kids, so you can imagine the sheer volume of paper that enters my house on a weekly basis. If you get behind a week, forget about it.

I probably should apply myself and take the stacks and stacks more seriously, but I just don’t have it in me. Oh, I’ll go through them, but it’s with a half-hearted effort, while I’m watching the evening news. Part of me resents the fact that teachers seem to think that dropping a weekly paper bomb on us parents is acceptable.

But, it dawned on me recently, that if I can miss a weekly homework assignment (which I’ve been known to do), I can easily miss a fundraising letter if it’s shoved down in the bowels of the backpack with all the Goldfish cracker crumbs. continue reading

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Even though I write about fundraising almost everyday and even though I worked in the non-profit industry for over 20 years, I have to be honest and tell you that I am sick of fundraising. I’ve got four active kids and they are always coming home with something I have to sign or write a check for. I feel like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan in one of those old martial arts movies where they have deadly assassins coming at them from every side. Only instead of fighting for my life, I am fighting for my wallet.

However, that said, I still UNDERSTAND why fundraising is important, and I don’t want my kids missing out on the important opportunities that fundraising can bring, so I do my best to play along. But, I wanted you all to know that I, like everyone else, have fallen victim to the dreaded affliction- Fundraising Fatigue.

So, if I, a veteran of several fundraising campaigns, am tired of being hit up for dollars, I can imagine the frustration of someone not used to the fire of a non-profit in need.

This article, therefore is addressed to school fundraising committees. Here are some ways you can show mercy on your students’ parents. Please do.

1. Create a fundraising plan at the beginning of the year and stick to it. If you’re always changing things around or just coming up with a surprise fundraiser, people will start to hate you. continue reading

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Today, I read an article online that I think is truly amazing. It’s from the Woburn, Massachusetts, Patch.com site, and it was written by Nadine Wandzilak on April 6, 2011. Here is a link to the original article.

The report tells of Hurld Elementary school and their latest fundraising effort. Inspired by a series of e-books written by Vicki Blazejowski of the website PTO Ideas, the folks at Hurld Elementary decided to depart from the more traditional methods of raising money and try something a little different. Instead of selling items as they had in the past, this year, they created a pledge-based math test, that was appropriate for each grade level. Basically, kids got pledges for getting correct answers on a math test.

Now, this wasn’t just a plain old ordinary math test. There were a series of fun events leading up to the actual test, which got kids very excited about taking part in this fundraiser.

Here are some excerpts from the article.

Students in each grade are going to take a 30-question grade-level test developed by their teachers and collect pledges for their correct answers.

To get them even more excited about the project, students participated in scavenger hunts Tuesday at school to find the answers to a series of grade-appropriate math questions.

Adding to the novel fundraiser, students who return their sponsor sheet by this coming Monday, April 11, will have a chance to win by raffle one of more than 10 prizes. Two of the prizes: A ride to school in a fire truck or police cruiser.

The new approach to fundraising pleases fourth-grader Jonathan Jiang in the class of Tara Tedesco.
Before, you would have to go around the neighborhood and ask people to buy things, Jonathan said.

This way, “You stay in school and do math,” he said. Definitely better. continue reading

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Taking a position with a parent-teacher group is a big decision. It can be very time-consuming and frustrating with a big helping of being unappreciated. But, despite these hardships, the folks who do take on this responsibility know there is a job to be done.

With all the individual tasks that go into running the school’s fundraising arm, it would seem that getting to know the folks who run the PTOs at the other elementary schools in the district would be hard to fit in.

However, I recommend that you take the time to do just that. I know it’s difficult and you are already stretched thin enough as it is, but there can be some real benefits to introducing yourself to the PTO leaders at the other elementary schools in your district.

Here are three: continue reading

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Every ship needs a skipper. Every team needs a captain. Every orchestra needs a conductor. And, yes, every school needs a fundraising leader.

Here is a list of just some of the responsibilities a school fundraising leader must accomplish:

1. Assess school needs that are not covered by budgetary spending.

2. Communicate with the teaching staff and the school administration to find out what the fundraising priorities should be.

3. Come up with a well-balanced plan of fundraising attack that lasts the entire year long.

4. Have an excellent grasp of when other schools or non-profits are holding their fundraisers, so there’s no conflict.

5. Communicate the school’s need to the parents of the students in several different manners, making sure they understand the goals of the school’s fundraising campaign.

6. Research any fundraising companies the school might be working with and find the right combination of popular product, good price, solid customer service, and high profit sharing percentage.

7. Put together a competent and enthusiastic fundraising team of assistants, from which future leaders will emerge.

8. Organize and delegate responsibilities for all fundraising events through out the year.

9. Keep the students motivated during all fundraising activities.

10. Keep the parents updated on fundraising progress.

11. Make sure the teachers are promoting fundraising events in the classroom.

12. Keep track of all bookkeeping records.

13. Make sure all financial systems are safe from embezzlement or general mis-management.

14. Develop healthy relationships with local merchants for donations, discounts, and support with things like ad sales in yearbooks.

15. Keep excellent records of all fundraising activities so that future fundraising leaders will know where to begin.

Now, some of these responsibilities would seem to fall squarely into the purview of the parent-teacher organization. Teachers and principals should spend most of their time concerned about the student’s educational experience.

However, the question I posed in the headline of this article was “Who Sets the Fundraising Tone in your School?” continue reading

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