We do this.. a vendor night and it's open to all parents with home based businesses. They pay for the table and keep all the profits. They are required to donate a item to be auctioned off as well, which is done tricky tray style, therefore generating more funds.
Not a big money maker but offers exposure to all parents who want to get the word out about their business. We do in November, right before holidays as that is when people are doing the most shopping for extraneous stuff. Orders are taken that night as well and one delivery day is offered at the school for those items.
Agree with others on this thread. If you allow one parent to do in school fundraiser, you are in a for no end of headaches. Not worth the aggrevation, IMHO.
Our school has hosted a home based fundraiser event. It wasn't held on school property and was open to all families in the school. If more than one person from the same company wanted a table we went with the person that paid for their table first. That information was stated on the flyer we sent home. We gave families in the school about 2 months to sign up before we opened it to the public. We only had one rep. from each company. They had to pay for the table and donate a raffle item. We didn't take a % of sales. Its worked out great and everyone has a good time.
:eek: The middle school in our district tried that with a candle-selling mom a couple years ago. All I can say is...the horror stories and problems all mentioned above came to life! Tim sums it up perfectly with, "Can of worms."
The vendor show sounds like a nice compromise - for them to get exposure and some sales and for the PTO to make a little publicity and money for themselves too.
You could keep it simple by just hosting the event, renting tables/space, etc. or you could go bigger with lots of raffles (of donated vendor products of course, as mentioned) and maybe even sell drinks and snacks. It all depends on what your group is looking for and willing to handle.
Good Luck!
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller
We don't do fundraisers with home based businesses for all the reasons listed. A few years back we had a mom get on the fundraiser committe thinking she could get us to sell her Home Interiors when she heard all that was involved she ran in the other direction. Doing a fundraiser for 600 students isn't is easy as it sounds and all the problems that could arise she never even thought of.
If your school puts on a play maybe in your newsletter ask for parents to put their business cards in the program for a fee. Then they get free advertising to all the parents of the school. Our middle school and high school do this. We have a parent who has a catering service and she says it really helped boost business. Just another idea.
Cindy<br />
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<br>"People have the right to be stupid, but some abuse the privelege."
You could, but I wouldn't. I'd charge more for the space and let them keep all the profit. If you want a piece of profit, then you likely need to charge less for the space (and I'd rather not be in that business of tracking sales and trusting numbers, etc.).
One common add-on -- ask each exhibitor to donate a prize for all-day raffles.
