the 8th grade parent rep and my PTA board is actually trying to work together on having our next fundraiser together so that we get more volunteers from 8th grade(parents and kids) on board and they will get a percentage of that fundraiser profits.

I understand your frustration, but unfortunately other groups competetive fundraising is a fact of life for most of us. The parent group tends to be the central organization in elementary school. But after that, it's just one in an increasingly long list.

In high school - at least for us - it becomes a whirlwind of "big" fundraising. Each class raises money for their prom, but the fundraising starts their freshman year and continues all 4 years. Similarly, a parent group raises funds for graduation night - again each class all 4 years. Each of the main sports area plus band are in the same boat. In our school that means about 15 groups that are striving for tens of thousands of dollars each, plus the multitude of student groups and organizations.

I'm wondering if other schools share this same problem we have with our school. I'm the PTA President of a private school with about 400 students grades Nursery-8th grade. We just finished building a 3rd building in the last 3 years. It's amazing how far we've come. Well, of course with all this building comes the need for funds. So being I'm on my 2nd year as PTA Pres. my board and myself have been working really hard on some fundraisers where there's little parent participation. To make matters worse, the 8th grade class is fundraising like crazy so all their 25 students can pay for their end of the year 2 day trip to Washington. The 8th grade parents decided they don't want to pay for the trip (even though 90% can easily afford it), but they would rather fundraise for the $20,000 the trip will cost. So far they've done as many funraisers as the PTA and a lot of them are PTA type fundraisers like a Family Fun Day with games & rides & BBQ. They also had a bake sale and boutique. I think it's not right that they're trying to raise as much money as we are and they're cause is a luxery trip while ours is raising money to purchase much needed educational resources for the school!
The Principal doesn't seem to care. He's very supportive of the 8th grade fundraisers and not very appreciative of PTA efforts. For example, we just donated $6,000 worth of books (we asked for profits to be in the form of vouchers) from 3 years of Scholastic book fairs to our new school library and the Principal didn't even say anything at the school dinner we just had. Not that we need thanking all the time but to compete with 8th grade fundraising is very frustrating. My board is ready to give up!