Yes, I know of a vendor in Fort Worth that gives kickbacks, and whenever I hear of someone using her fundraising company I see them in a different way from then on. It's unfortunate, but I don't think the company will get caught because no PTA member is going to admit they took money from her. People are greedy!

We did a fundraiser last year around chrismtas time and we had no idea what the supplier had up his sleeve. We never take any kickbacks, but at the end the supplier gave us a call and said he had something for us for using his supplies. He came to our school and gave us a nintendo wii. We had no idea. It was a great surprise to us and we asked the principal if he wanted it and of course he didnt turn it down. We made the supplier a great amount of money so i guess it was his donation to us.

I have been doing fundraisers since I was in school and now with almost 7 years of doing my own children's fundraisers I feel I am becoming an expert.
I personally help to research my vendors and choose some based on perks.
If they were to offer me a gift card or other type of monetary gift I always give it to the principal to be used for a school event. As we are a small non profit school all of our group activities are potluck or donations. I use these as an added bonus for those events to keep our costs down.
If it is a toy, electronic or other item that could be raffled off we do that as well. I always give everyone a fair chance at receiving the prize. I have also given the custom t-shirts sweatshirts etc to a parent who volunteers or the teachers.
It is more of a giving back opportunity for the PTO group to "share the wealth".

I posted an earlier response and I agree with everyone. However, perhaps the reason you think these "kickbacks" or perhaps a better word is "bribes" do not happen is simply you are not aware of it. It is certainly not out front in the open. No person on your board would tell you, "Oh by the way, "Joe" from ABC fundraising gave me $300 to sign with his company". I have seen this happen many times over the years. It also happens outside the PTO. I have heard of athletic directors and even superintendents receiving kickbacks for doing business with a certain vendor. State legislators and federal congressmen have been caught receiving bribes. It would be naive to think this does not happen on your level. Sad, but true.

I've never heard of getting a kick-back from the fundraising companies. We have received "incentives" such as mp3 players, gift cards, and one of our vendors is providing an ipad to the PTO this fall for continued years of using them. But it's the PTO's and we'll raffle it off to raise funds for the PTO and one of our lucky families will get it. No one should individually receiving anything from the vendors - give it to the school if they offer it.

Keep this in mind: The only dollars that the fundraising company has to work with are the sales of the products. If they give you a kickback then they are taking that money away somewhere else, either by raising prices, cutting quality, cutting your profit margin, cutting the prizes and promotions, etc. In essence, if they give you a kickback you can bet that your organization will be making less money.