I agree too. IMHO, each group/cause/committee out there is designed to, through events and programs, raise their money for their cause. Are they going to turn a portion of their earned money back to you?
Keep in mind, as the others said, once you open the door to the Relay group everyone else will come and ask...and...some will EXPECT! Lesson learned and handed down to me from our previous PTO leader who said "yes" many years ago.
It's understandable to want to support them, but leave it to people to do on a personal level or the school or companies that are known to support various causes. I think that you helping them with a donation of using your equipment is great in itself!!
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it" - Ferris Bueller
I totally agree that the PTO should not make a donation. How can you then say no to another worthy cause. We were approached this year to support an event for Autism. As President, I had to say no since we could then be asked by another parent that does fundraising for ALS to support her efforts, the Relay for Life team, etc. The list could go on and on.
If the teachers &/or parents have a team, they could ask parents to support them, but it may not be within school policy for them to send a memo home for that. So it would be up to word of mouth to spread the news and have parents donate on a personal basis.
Making a positive difference one project at a time <img src=images/smilies/smile.gif>
I wouldn't make a donation in the PTO's name. There's no more noble cause, but it's not within your mission statement to make a cash donation. You could be inundated with similar requests if the word got out that PTO made a donation.
Some of the schools in our district have Relay For Life teams. Over the past couple of years, it's gotten competitive. Now one of the leaders of the team has off-handed suggested that all groups that raise funds in the school should have to donate to their team. All eyes looked at us because the PTO raises the most funds.
Our mission statement says that the money all goes to benefit the school and the children. We feel bad but don't think that we should be coerced into donating. If we do it for this cause, then how do we explain why we don't do it for the diabetes walk, earth day committee or the next cause that comes along?
Amongst ourselves, we have agreed that we support these different efforts by giving them use of our equipment (water coolers, tickets, cups, popcorn machine, etc) and that we should limit ourselves to that. What do you think?
