Post by browneyedgirl9 on Oct 11, 2021 13:55:48 GMT -5
We do the following events:
1. Otis Cookie Sale 2. Craft Fair (vendors pay $30 per booth, admission is a few bucks, we also sell food and snacks at fair, and do a 50/50 raffle) 3. Hayride Event at local farm 4. Scholastic book Fair 5. Santa drive through event (donation per car load) we decorate outside with trees and blow ups and Santa is at the end for a meet/greet. We also sell cookies and cocoa for extra profit. 6. School Dance (sell tickets, sell snacks)
This is exactly what we do, remind people throughout the year in the newsletters how their money is spent. If the kids have an enrichment or field trip pictures are posted on the schools facebook page with a thank you to the PTO and parents for paying dues to make the event possible. We started using venmo 2 years ago, it has been successful.
Do y'all have insurance? We can't pay for field trips or use Venmo due to insurance. We can (and do) use PayPal.
we do have insurance. We are an official 501(c)3 company and have all the insurance required. We don’t run field trips ourselves, we fund a portion of all field trips the school does.
Do y'all have insurance? We can't pay for field trips or use Venmo due to insurance. We can (and do) use PayPal.
we do have insurance. We are an official 501(c)3 company and have all the insurance required. We don’t run field trips ourselves, we fund a portion of all field trips the school does.
ah gotcha. I wonder if this is state specific? We get around the field trip thing in a similar way (though those are typically paid by activity fees) but Venmo is still a hard no, unfortunately.
Using Venmo for non-profits is also against the terms of service. Venmo is meant to be used as a person to person payment. The funds can be frozen in a Venmo account if they find out if the money is for a non-profit.
Post by Poeticxpassion on Oct 11, 2021 15:29:03 GMT -5
I'm PTO president this year. I'm up to my eyeballs in planning fundraisers for the year. We aim to do one thing a month. The big fundraisers will be the Sock Hop and Silent Auction, Butter Braids and the Glow Run. The others are things we put on for the community and don't profit much after covering our expenses.
1. Trunk or Treat 2. Butter Braids 3. Holiday Shop 4. Build a Bear Night 5. Sock Hop Dance 6. Boosterthon Glow Run 7. Cookies and Canvas night 8. 2 spirit nights a month 9. Spirit wear
Using Venmo for non-profits is also against the terms of service. Venmo is meant to be used as a person to person payment. The funds can be frozen in a Venmo account if they find out if the money is for a non-profit.
Yes, we lucked out. Through beta testing our elementary school Paypal lets us generate a Venmo button. I am no longer the treasurer there so I don't know if they use Venmo anymore.
Our high school PTO treasurer ( prior to me) set up a Venmo business account. We work with a non-profit accountant to maintain our status and pay relevant fees at the state and federal level.
Post by notsopicky on Oct 11, 2021 16:23:55 GMT -5
I have a lot of thoughts about PTA fundraisers, and PTAs in general. I believe that they are inherently inequitable and I hate them. I hate that wealthy schools use the funds to buy fancy staff lunches and computers and teachers and big programs. I hate that School A has a $3000 a year operating budget, while School B has a $50000 a year operating budget, and School C has a $90000 a year operating budget. PTAs are not used to fund basic school items in our county; the school budget pays for tech and library books and some supplies. Could it be more? Of course it could. But to say that School C can purchase a cart of iPads for a grade level b/c their PTA raised $90000, while School A couldn't possibly do that with their measly $3000...inherently inequitable.
I could go on all day about this subject. I am thisveryclose to bringing it up to our superintendent.
notsopicky , the New York Times had a good piece on this topic a few years ago. It's a tough issue. Have you watched the old documentary Waiting for Superman? IIRC, it focuses on an education reformer who enrolls his kids in the local struggling DC public school with the goal of improving them while there, but ultimately transfers his kids to private school because he decides he can't make them suffer to try to help other kids. That's a gross oversimplification, obviously - but gets at how these are systemic issues that people have trouble disadvantaging their own kids to fix. Like, my kids' school wouldn't have science and art teachers unless the PTA funded them. All kids should have science and art (and I vote accordingly and pay one of the highest tax rates in the country), but I'd also like the money I'm donating to help my kids have science and art.
I have a lot of thoughts about PTA fundraisers, and PTAs in general. I believe that they are inherently inequitable and I hate them. I hate that wealthy schools use the funds to buy fancy staff lunches and computers and teachers and big programs. I hate that School A has a $3000 a year operating budget, while School B has a $50000 a year operating budget, and School C has a $90000 a year operating budget. PTAs are not used to fund basic school items in our county; the school budget pays for tech and library books and some supplies. Could it be more? Of course it could. But to say that School C can purchase a cart of iPads for a grade level b/c their PTA raised $90000, while School A couldn't possibly do that with their measly $3000...inherently inequitable.
I could go on all day about this subject. I am thisveryclose to bringing it up to our superintendent.
I hear you. Our district has rules about some of this (like, we aren’t allowed to pay for technology of any kind) to keep the basics of what kids get access to in the classroom equitable throughout the district. Also strict rules on gifts for teachers. It definitely isn’t 100% fair and school A might have more visiting authors or speaker series etc, but there is an effort to not make it totally skewed.
Some of these fundraising amounts are insane to me. We are in a rural area, title I school, where the majority are on free and reduced lunch and it would be absolutely impossible to raise this much or even ask parents to donate $50.
When I was the PTO volunteer coordinator it will also hard getting volunteers. You can’t have events with parent manpower and we just didn’t have it.
Our 2 most popular fundraisers are Gertrude Hawk and a local coffee place. The local coffee place one is awesome for many reasons and it was fun to watch that take off.
Some of these fundraising amounts are insane to me. We are in a rural area, title I school, where the majority are on free and reduced lunch and it would be absolutely impossible to raise this much or even ask parents to donate $50.
When I was the PTO volunteer coordinator it will also hard getting volunteers. You can’t have events with parent manpower and we just didn’t have it.
It’s definitely connected to COL - like many of our elementary teachers make six figures, so to fund a teacher position the PTA needs to raise a lot of $ - but where teachers make a lot, generally so do many of the parents whose kids go there.
I have a lot of thoughts about PTA fundraisers, and PTAs in general. I believe that they are inherently inequitable and I hate them. I hate that wealthy schools use the funds to buy fancy staff lunches and computers and teachers and big programs. I hate that School A has a $3000 a year operating budget, while School B has a $50000 a year operating budget, and School C has a $90000 a year operating budget. PTAs are not used to fund basic school items in our county; the school budget pays for tech and library books and some supplies. Could it be more? Of course it could. But to say that School C can purchase a cart of iPads for a grade level b/c their PTA raised $90000, while School A couldn't possibly do that with their measly $3000...inherently inequitable.
I could go on all day about this subject. I am thisveryclose to bringing it up to our superintendent.
Does your district have a PTA council?
If so, this is an area where they can really help. Schools can be paired (sister schools) with wealthier PTAs ensuring that their sister school (PTAs with small budgets) also enjoy nice staff lunches, etc. For big programs and assemblies, they will host events jointly and split the proceeds or the wealthier PTA will pick up the tab but have both schools attend the evening program. Things like that. But it is all billed as being done jointly so unless you are on the backend, you aren't really aware of the finances behind the scenes.
Our PTAs primarily focus on volunteering and parent involvement facilitation. Which is inequitable in and of itself but it also doesn't sit right with me to say that because one school has fewer volunteers, interested parents shouldn't be allowed to fill needs at their own kids school. I get why it sucks, I taught in a school where we had very few parent volunteers, no staff appreciation from parents, etc., but I'm not sure that the answer is to not allow these things to happen. I think it lies in figuring out how to make it happen everywhere.
Our PTO puts together an obstacle course for the kids as a fundraiser. It’s nothing elaborate. We pair with the PE teacher and use some of the school’s equipment (scooters, cones, mats to climb over) and then we have built/purchased a few things. We advertise a lot that it’s a “one-time ask” so families know that they’re not going to be expected to buy cookie dough and wrapping paper later in the year. Since we do it ourselves, we get to keep 100% of the money raised, which is awesome.
The kids do the obstacle course during the school day during their Specials time. The teachers have been great about moving the schedules around a little bit so everyone still gets the art/music/counseling if they would have normally been scheduled on that day instead of PE. The Specials teachers are awesome and love helping out all day (it’s a lot of fun!) and the classroom teachers usually participate with the kids (which the kids think is the greatest thing in the world & the teachers I know look forward to it)…but some teachers choose to help at a station and encourage the kids as they run. I do think that this is VERY dependent on school/staff culture, though! Our staff skews younger and very energetic (the previous principal definitely had a “type” that he liked), and lots of silly/fun things happen in the school. This would NOT be the same at my former elementary school! Totally different culture!
Our district rules don’t allow any individual or class rewards for fundraising. They don’t want to anyone to be left out. For Box Tops, we can do grade level awards, but not classroom (4-5 classes per grade).
Post by countthestars on Oct 11, 2021 21:46:59 GMT -5
Our PTA did Penny Wars with our 3rd-5th graders and raised a quick $6k with minimal effort (we are a small school so it was a decent amount of cash). It was nice because anyone could contribute - even if they only had a few coins - and the prizes were given at the grade level - extra recess for the grade that raised the most money each day.
I have a lot of thoughts about PTA fundraisers, and PTAs in general. I believe that they are inherently inequitable and I hate them. I hate that wealthy schools use the funds to buy fancy staff lunches and computers and teachers and big programs. I hate that School A has a $3000 a year operating budget, while School B has a $50000 a year operating budget, and School C has a $90000 a year operating budget. PTAs are not used to fund basic school items in our county; the school budget pays for tech and library books and some supplies. Could it be more? Of course it could. But to say that School C can purchase a cart of iPads for a grade level b/c their PTA raised $90000, while School A couldn't possibly do that with their measly $3000...inherently inequitable.
I could go on all day about this subject. I am thisveryclose to bringing it up to our superintendent.
This is how it is in our district. DD's school is lucky to raise $5000 a year and it cover really basic stuff (OBOB funds, school assemblies, and partial payments on field trips) it took 3 years to earn enough to add to a teacher's grant to buy 10 iPad. DD's friend (school same district) walk-a-thon made 21k virtually last year plus they do a bunch of other smaller fundraisers. Our PTO has basically gone under with the pandemic and I'm very glad to escape.
A friend's kid is doing this for a sports fundraiser. They get 50%
I hate fundraisers. My kids have 2 people they can sell stuff to. They never win any prizes and always feel bad when they see all the cool stuff their friends get.
I would rather just donate cash. I always suggested doing a donation appeal letter when I was PTA President but no one ever wanted to do it.
Both the school that I teach at and my DD’s school do a direct drive in the fall. It is usually quite successful, and then we aren’t asked to do more throughout the year. There is also a hot lunch program where the school gets a portion.
Post by bookqueen15 on Oct 13, 2021 18:45:42 GMT -5
The PTA at my DDs school (and it seems most of the other elementary schools in our neighborhood) only do two fundraiser a year. A big silent auction event fundraiser in the fall and then a boosterthon fun run in the spring.
We have an annual jog-a-thon, and we switch off between an auction one year and a direct fundraising campaign the next. Total fundraising is $500 per student.
My understanding is the auction is the biggest fundraiser. People bid crazy amounts. If it's a free massage you stop bidding when you get to the retail price of the massage and bid on something else. People pay like 3x or 4x retail prices!
I’m in an elementary school PTA. We do one big fundraiser in the fall that’s a walkathon. We’ve raised anywhere from almost $25k (2019) and our goals this year is $15k, which I think we’ll beat.
This covers 90% our operating costs for the year.
It’s all online and this year during recess due to Covid. I can offer more info if needed. Other than the online platform fee, which is similar to PayPal’s, the PTA does everything. We don’t pay a 3rd party to run it because they take a huge chunk.
We don’t mark-up spirit wear other than to cover tax.
We do semi-monthly family spirit nights, but they don’t bring in much.
Kroger and Amazon smile give us decent returns for no work for us.
What online platform do you use? Our school just did a Dance-a-Thon through boosterthon and they kept 48 percent! I was shocked and would love to have another suggestion for next year, because it was a really successful fundraiser.
christy082, we're on our 2nd year of 99 pledges. The fee is basically the same as PayPal. We still do all the work for marketing and running the event.
Previously they were doing everything by paper, including sending OOT letters for students. When I took over as chair it was the first thing I said needed to be updated since that's a lot of touch time/volunteer hours that could spent elsewhere.