Question: How many major fundraisers per year is allowed?

This is my first year as President on my school's PTA. Currently, our board is being put between a rock and a hard place. The board all voted no to a fundraiser, and admin decided to pick it up. Now admin is asking for us to front the money, run it through our bank account, and write the check at the end. While this is all well and good, and not at all what we wanted to do, we do have to wonder what the fundraising limits are for major ones? Most I know follow the 3:1 rule. Any ideas here to help out?

Asked by TR Mom

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Rose H writes:
Hi TR Mom,
There isn't an official rule, but consider doing 1 or 2 big fundraisers a year, along with a few smaller programs, like restaurant fundraising. In general, more than 2 big fundraisers a year is just too much. It can turn off the parents and it is also a huge amount of work.

Rose

Community Advice

Parttimeparli writes:
What the school is asking of you is called money laundering and it is illegal. You cannot deposit funds that don't belong to you into your account. If you want backup advice, contact your state PTA treasurer.

Community Advice

admobile writes:
Parents are burned out with selling, collecting money and distributing products. AdMobile created a unique idea where parents trade off doing all that for receiving a few text ads per day. It doesn't cost the fundraiser or parents any money. The money is made when ads are sold to businesses who like the idea of sending their coupons, promotions, etc. to the parents' mobile phones via text. Fundraisers don't even really sell the ad. They just refer the advertiser to AdMobile who manages the advertisers, collects the ad revenue and pays the fundraisers. All the fundraiser has to do is have their supporters subscribe via text and show an app about the advertising to advertisers.

Community Advice

teachme writes:
One of the best ways to manage a fundraiser is with www.pay4schoolstuff.com. We have used this program for years and strongly recommend their product. They have a free trial anyone can take a test drive before they decide!

Community Advice

clayboggess writes:
A good rule to go by is the fewer the better. This will make life easier on your parents as well as your community. The hard part is finding out how to make fewer fundraisers more profitable so you can still reach your financial goals with 1 or 2 per year.

This takes strategic planning along with some hard work and creativity. You have to find out what will work best for your area and then how best to promote it. Here is an article that describes 5 ways to improve school fundraising results by 50% .