I've been stalking this site forever but never felt like I could give any useful feedback. Fundraising is my thing so I am finally going to post.

The most important thing I want in a rep. is someone who is dependable and available. Our school is in the middle of nowhere and it's nearly impossible to find reps in the area. I want a person that I can contact by phone but more importantly for me, by email. It's more convenient and it leaves a documented trail of the conversation.
I also want a rep that stands behind their contract and any other promises made along the way. We once used a rep that "promised" us we would be exclusive in our town for the fall season. With in 2 years she was selling to 6 out of 8 of our elementary schools and to every soccer team, etc. in town. Now we have a rep. that gave us "contract" that states we are exclusive if we continue selling over a certain amount.
I expect a rep to be there for the kick off. I want high energy and a person who can speak to kids at a kid level. I want the prizes on display so the kids can see what they can personally get out of the deal.
At delivery, I want my rep there. Although I absolutely love the company we've been using for the past 2 years, both years there has been a company mistake at delivery. I expect the rep to be there to find a solution on the spot.
Our rep is very helpful and getting more and more helpful as we get to know each other. Not that we have a close personal friendship, but we have worked together for 2 years and have alot of respect for each other. She knows each person on our board by name.
We don't change chairs each year and if the chair wants to step aside, they need to appoint a co-chair to help through the process before letting them have it. We are very loyal to our rep / company. In fact, we just signed a 3 year exclusive contract. As I said before, we have to sell a certain amount to maintain the contract, but the contract is exclusive year round even though we only have one fundraiser a year in the fall. We want to be known for selling this product and don't want the market to get overwhelmed. A few members of our pto thought this was selfish and greedy because we are very successful but we only sell one thing. Everyone else in town can sell whatever they want and we aren't going to try to horn in on their success.
We now have a contract to protect that.

Hey Tim, We have used one company for 10 years, and alot of the why is because she really does a great job. She is there to plan and give us new ideas for promotion each year. She is there to show us the new line, and give samples at our BTS night. She even provides us a beautiful gift box filled for a parent raffle. The company gives us free display to keep, posters, chairmans handbook, etc. All of what is necessary to make my job easier.

She is at delivery and calls to set that up. The company could do all this, but she is our liason, and we respect all that she does for us. I am from New York, and trust me many of the salespeople are like car salespeople, though they mean well, they can be pushy. We are hit up by about 15 different local reps. each year, some don't know when to let off. Our rep. is not pushy, let's us make the decision and even gives us an added bonus for resign, before we get the sale and other bonus offers from the company. This is money out of her pocket, which we use for the kids. So in a nutshell, the product is decent, as are many company products. The company is a little different (they have a range of products from our New England area, so they sell better than the cheap things. Honestly I am the FR chair, never president, and I choose to continue doing what I do, our rep. makes my job easier.

The groups I've been involved with have the "stick with what works" approach. If we respect the rep, product and have done with with our fundraising - we've stayed with them for our main Fall Fundraiser.

I'm not sure starting from scratch each year is a viable answer for us. It takes a few months to get the meetings with reps in and meetings to discuss how we felt about the different reps and bring it to the Board for a final decision. We have plenty of other events to keep us busy year round. I also don't think rushing to just bring in something different is a good idea. We also have been using companies which "give" us inflatables & a dj for our Spring Carnival. So changing vendors for the fall fundraiser directly relates to the carnival as well.

My hope is that when a FR committee is looking into different vendors, they are looking at our future needs, not just a "hey let's try 'em and see if it might work this year" approach.

Our Spring fundraising is another story though. We have usually done something different each year. The sales are more of an offer something different rather than trying to bring big money in. For example, one year we worked with a local flower shop and sold "bucks" people could use at that shop. Another year, we sold spiritwear, and another yet we sold the Humanitees shirts (now bancrupt). Last year we worked with a vendor from MI whose catalogs offer lots of MI type products. We did so well with those the past few years, this year we aren't going to do one at all.

to answer your second question Tim if we have a good experience and rep we do not make them go through the whole thing again, usually we sign the next years contract within a few months of finishing the sale. We have however gotten into the rotating of our fundraisers every other year. Our families seem to like that best.
I should mention that we make the decisions as a group and then have the fundraiser chair take over from there.

[ 01-04-2007, 07:12 AM: Message edited by: pals ]

I don't post often, but I've been in charge of several FR in the past. I actually used a company that was a DIY fundraiser. The first 2 years we used them we were very successful. Another chair used a different company the 3rd year and then we went back to the DIY company the 4th year but they had changed many of their policies and we were not as happy that time.

I hate when reps call the school looking for me. I don't work there and I don't live there so it'll be a while before I get your message, if I ever do and I'm not going to call you back. I'm just not, my life is busy enough without returning solicitation phone calls. I hate it just as much when they call me at home. Send me some info and I'll look over it when I can and if I have questions I'll call.

Most of the info you receive covers most of the questions you'd need to ask. Trust that I'm intelligent enough to figure it out on my own.

And if you send me a sample of your stuff, don't send the cheap stuff. Send the great quality stuff that would wow me. I hate it when the item in the picture looks so great and so big and then you receive it at home and it's tiny and falling apart right out of the bag.

We dropped a fundraiser for several reasons but one contributing factor was the lack of service from the service rep. She would actually show up for the regular distributions and yell at everyone like we were privates in her army! I spoke with her about it but she didn't change her behaviour. She also lied about company policy to make things easier for her and a larger burden for us. She did some back pedaling when we cited these 'policies' in our letter to the company but the damage was already done.

Pals and Perusing make a good point about items being delivered to the PTA. Many companies think it's the universal parent group acronym. That doesn't turn me off to the company. It doesn't matter to me as much as the presentation of their product. As Tim mentioned in a long ago post, we screeners turn on our Spidey Sense when reviewing their mailings. Most end up in the trash can. My monthly meetings would have been spent doing nothing but reviewing fundraiser propaganda if I presented everything to the group for review.

I don't like phone calls or drop ins at the school because it places an unfair burden on the office staff.

So, in summary, I'd say the key points are similar to what pals and perusing mention: Honesty, Knowledge of your client, Respect.

To the second part of Tim's question:

My last team appoints committee chairmen every year. If the same person wants to stay on they have priority. If they vacate the position, someone new is appointed. We had a great habit of keeping records so nobody started from scratch unless they presented a new fundraiser.

I have no experience with staying with a company simply because of the rep. I hope that if I ever faced that situation that I would consider every year if it's still the right fundraiser for our group and make decisions based on that.