My schools have been involved with eScrip and OneCause. They both have benefits and drawbacks. With eScrip, you have to get your families to go to the site and register their credit cards/store cards, but once done, they never have to think about it again (the school can auto-renew for families). Money comes back to the school automatically when cards are used at participating businesses (like local grocery stores). There is little effort (except getting people to initially register) but also low return (because it is difficult to get people to initially register).
With OneCause, individuals register (no card information is needed) and it is a gateway to other online merchants. Online purchases from participating merchants that originate from the OneCause site get money sent back to the school (percentage varies by merchant). There are MANY merchants that participate (Target, most department stores, pretty much anything you can imagine online!), and some give decent percentages back to the schools, but it is dependent on your families remembering to have the purchases originate from their site. Again, low return.
I would love to know if anyone has had success with either of these programs? I would like to be the "champion" of both at my school and want to know how practical that really is.
Our PTO has such a fund raising tool where energy and telecommunication are the products. Please message me if you want to learn more, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Do you all have spirit nights at local restaurants? Our school does this at Chick-Fil-A, Buffalo's Wild Wings and Tijuana Flats. A portion of the money spent by your school's families that go to those restaurants on the specified nights goes to your school. We designate a grade level for each night and the teachers decide how to best use the money for their classrooms. You can designate the money go to the PTO also.
That website you shared looks really interesting and promising! I love ordering things from Shutterfly already and it would be great if part of what I spend would be donated right back to our school. Please let us know how it works out for your nephew's school!
Check out these folks. They are launching next week at my nephew's school. It's the same as Shutterfly or Snapfish but up to 40% goes back to the school.
