I must say, I'm somewhat frustrated. All you folks on here claim that you'd love to do away with catalog fundraisers, cookie dough and the like, are proponents of a straight donation based program, yet when presented with a LEARNING based fundraising program that required NO SELLING that we were marketing last year, there was ZERO interest. We've since altered our marketing campaign so we're not directly selling to schools currently, so Tim, this is not a solicitation, I'm just trying to understand what the schools really want with regard to fundraising and is it in the best interest of the children.

We started an "opt-out" program at our school two years ago. We do a flier that goes out in our welcome packet. The parents have the option to opt-out of the regular fundraisers (gift wrap, cookie dough) and give a donation which they can deduct on their taxes. Last year we had about 20% participation but augmented it with the regular fundraisers which many parents still wanted and participated in.

I personally prefer the straight donation at our school. It's optional, I end up with no unnecessary junk, and I can claim it as a charitable contribution on my taxes. But I'm definitely in the minority. Most complain endlessly about the sales and fundraising, but wouldn't participate in a cash option.

Note - if it's a required cash donation, it probably isn't deductable. So you might need to watch your wording.

Let me first start by saying we are a private school and I'm sure we work differently than private. But each "family" is assessed $400 per year. (Small school - 150 kids) You need to fundraise toward that $400 (you sold $100 with 50% profit = $50 toward your $400 fundraising goal). Everyone has to meet this goal. You have the option to fundraise a lot or a little and pay out the different - or pay out the whole $400. Most of the schools in our area work this way.

We are going to drop our brochure sale this year. First thing we did was make sure we raised a good amt last year in our to cushion ourselves this year if what we do fails to bring in as much as our brochure sale (25K) We are going to do a live auction in October and sould raise a lot of money. We promoted the fact we were going to take 1 year off of the brochure sale but in order to do that we needed parents support with this auction, we had tons of positive feedback so went ahead with the plan. I'm not exactly positive we will bring in anywhere close to 25k (granted we have tons of stuff to auction off but I'm still leary) but being we made that cushion my nervousness is something I don't have to worry about.

Our PTO (in an affluent area) tried the "No Fuss Fundraiser" a few years ago when the beginning checkbook balance was already particularly high and we could afford the risk. Good thing, too, because we earned about 1/2 of what we had earned with the catalog fundraising the year before. I took a look and here's what I found...

If you look only at the total amount of money you need to raise, divided by the number of kids in your school, it doesn't look so bad, about $21 per student. But, at our school, only 1/2 the students participate in our catalog fundraisers (based on the results of 5-6 fundraisers). So in order to match our catalog profit, we need to ask for a donation of $45 per student, since no more than 50% will participate.

Our stats show that, on average, each student sells to about 3 customers - grandma, uncle, the neighbor. So, those customers are contributing to the $45 profit brought in by the student. In a No Fuss program, that money is coming right out of mom and dad's pocket.

It sounds so easy, but we found it to be a bust. Clearly, good marketing can make a world of difference, and increase your sales, but how much??

Before you abandon the catalog sale, maybe consider other vendors, or running it a different time of the year. Or maybe try an auction or major raffle like a car. They're more work, but like most things, you rarely get something for nothing.