Hi, Sorry if this is a dupe, I couldn’t find a reference.:confused:
Any suggestions on how to successfully manage a joint annual fundraiser with a PTA despite some hostilities with our PTO program?
Our PTO has run a gift wrap fundraiser for several years. A few years ago our PTA asked if they could also sell gift wrap and agreed to use a different vendor. Now, they want to use our vendor and work with us on the fund raiser.
This fall we barely made the sales amount to secure free shipping, but I have concerns:
* the sales rep initiated the proposal - I'd rather see what we and the PTA want/need before chatting with a rep. and locking in one company.
* our PTO loses fundraising income if we compete with identical products, and school staff & families have to choose who to support.
* jeopardizing our PTA-community-building efforts if it isn't well coordinated, or we don't clearly defining the agreement.
* our group becoming the PTA's work force. (see background - we need to balance our hours with classroom, administration & larger school community.)
* increased administration with coordination (accounting, tracking & delivering orders, policies for returned checks, ...)
* and more...
Here is some background - our PTO is a district program of enrichment based on co-operative parent involvement. Six elementary schools feed into our location within a public k - 6 elementary school. Entry is by blind lottery, but there is still a sense that "I didn't get picked to be in the program", "why do they get <insert enrichment or teacher/parent initiated activity>?", and other "we-vs-them" attitudes that we are working to overcome. Participants are required to do 80 hours of volunteer time a year (up to 20 PTA hours count) & meet a fundraising amount (write a check or fund raise with scrip, escrip, gift wrap, and other options) to pay for field trips, a spanish teacher, incursions, mini-courses, etc. Most of our families are PTA members (1/3 of the whole PTA) & lead many PTA committees.
We jointly ran a scrip program with PTA, but last year they wanted out (claiming the return wasn't worth the effort, but couldn't state the return nor the time invested). We had a challenging meeting going through money & inventory, but our PTO pushed to determine an exact amount to buy them out & we all signed an agreement that it was a fair split to avoid bad feelings or rumors about it. I don't want to have to do that again!