We also just finished completing all orders/payments w/our catalog fundraiser. Our enrollemnt declined about 100 students, so our PTO budgeted 23K for this fundraiser. We ended up selling just under 26K total and our participation was even up! I firmly believe that it had to do with our rep who was local and really gave us great ideas, and offered to help whenver she could.

Most of our orders have been turned in and checked and our school did over $10,000 with our catalog sale, plus another $1000 in online sales. We're edging right up to the $12,000 mark that was what I had hoped we'd do (actually I was hoping for the $16,000 we did a few years ago, but realistically $12,000 was the goal).

Last year we only did $2000 due to trying something new that didn't work out, the year before that we did pretty much the same as this year. Not bad compared to how it could have been.

Perhaps another sign of how the recession is affecting fund raising. Entertainment, the owner of Sally Foster gift wrap, will be shutting down their main gift wrap warehouse. They plan to outsource the packing to another company, but no mention of future plans down the road. Two Entertainment reps had mentioned to me that the future focus of the company was in "other areas". Not sure what that means. First Entertainment lets Sally Foster herself go and now they close their main warehouse. Has anyone heard anything else about the future of Sally Foster and their relationship with Entertainment? This just may be a way of tightening the belt, but who knows.

Hi All-
Just wanted to pass along this article about how PTOs are adapting to hard economic times since it's relevant to the conversation. Some good ideas in there.


~ Lisa


follow me on twitter:
twitter.com/ptotoday

Our sales were down from last year, already brainstorming different ideas to help make up some of the money. I would say sales down al,most 20%

Today was the first day of counting our fundraiser and I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised. I doubt this will be a banner year, but all things considered we're doing better than I expected.

We did a catalog sale (2 catalogs actually) and we're already over $6000; we just had a 3 day weekend so many people forgot to send in their money, when they do I think sales will improve even more. Personally I don't like food sales, too much fuss and bother keeping things cold or storing them properly when customers fail to pick them up on time, but that's just me. Also, I'm a coupon shopper and if I refuse to pay what I think are too high prices for an item, I can't imagine trying to convince other people to do so.