Sending out a 'Reminder, there's still time to return your tickets!' with a new due date isn't unheard of. We do it with every fundraiser and always get more returned in those last few days. All of our 'due dates' have a built in 3-4 day extension so we can get a 'there's still time to participate' flyer out the day it is "due". We're all busy, a polite reminder letting parents know it's not too late to participate is helpful.
We have an annual fall raffle fundraiser where we go to the community and get items donated as prizes. All money earned from selling tickets is ours. We have 50 or so children in our school (pre-k only) and gave them each $30 in tickets to sell over a couple of weeks. With a potential of earning $1500
Now let me just say I wasn't anticipating on selling every ticket, however out of 50 bags send out we received 16 back, and a total sales of around $340. That's not a very good return. Personally I think many parents forgot to turn them back in. I had gotten calls from parents about getting more tickets, and I didn't get their bags back yet.
I didn't think to send out a reminder, maybe I should have. I'm thinking of extending the turn in time by a couple of days and sending home a reminder on monday.
I don't think I'm being cranky about the money returned, but If people bought tickets, and the person selling forgot to return them this past week, I don't want them to not get added in.