Yes we based our projections on number of families rather than students as it's the parents who shop on line. Our 406 families are generating $2000 per month through our website which will give us between$18k-$24k per year without selling, stocking any product or volunteers.
For those of you that posted $ amounts (thanks!) Can you please provide the number of students in your school as well? Trying to benchmark a few things on my end.
Our group as a whole all agreed that we would not do any real selling this year. Instead the family or community approach would be implemented. It seems as though people are just tuned out of their children schools. We have held free events making holiday crafts/ with misc things to purchase ie: baked goods etc. We have held shopping nights at local retailers. We've held coffees, scrapbook parties... I can go on and on and its always the same group of people supplying and buying. it's very discouraging as a PTO officer. Our school staff and faculty cannot even be bothered to attend how can we expect more from the general parent population ?
WOW do these posts sound familiar. We were in a similar financial situation last fall and found a "quick fix" fundraising company that works with Non Profit Organizations and Youth groups.No volunteers needed, no product to order & stock and it was inexpensive. The best part I thought was it runs 12 months a year as compared to one time events.It's associated with over 500 retailers & since corporate funding is getting tight in these economic times it seemed to be a way to get companies like Target,Staples and Starbucks to still give back. As parents we all shop at these retailers anyways replacing everyday supplies whether we're a business or household & we're averaging 10% profit on all money spent.The company was good to work with ,supplied us with material to get started at no cost. Let me know if you'd like more information.
our school did the Race for Education last year and raised $15,000. We probably would have done even better but this was a new fundraiser for our parents and not everyone participated. Hopefully, we'll do even better this year. If you want more information about this you can go to
Race for Education
. Good luck!