Question: Business/Customer round up bill to fund our PTO

Were are a small school and would like to ask our retail businesses to see if customers would like to round up their bill and the proceeds would go to our PTO. Has anyone done this and what would we need to do for this? Would we need a foundation to handle the money? The PTO has a 501c3 status with the IRS. Any thoughts on what we should do or need will be appreciated.

Asked by bgaulke

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
That's an interesting idea -- I've never heard of a group doing a program like that. As long as your group is already 501c3, you wouldn't need to set up a foundation to handle the money. The difficulty is actually on the retailer side, where they would be mixing taxable money with nontaxed donations. It's an accounting challenge, and I expect you'll have some real convincing to do to get them to participate. It might even be worth talking to an accountant about how this would work for retailers before you talk to them, so you can counter their objections. Please keep us posted on how it goes.

Community Advice

daddario writes:
Hey everyone, to get started, make formal agreements with businesses, promote the initiative through flyers and social media and create a transparent donation processing system, no separate fund needed, just your PTO status, use https://moremeetings.co/b2b-appointment-setting-services/ to effectively connect with potential business -partners and ensure their participation in fundraising. It seems to me that I was useful to you.