I do all my ordering on the Internet. I have only needed to call in once the whole year and that was to check on a gift card that didn't have any money loaded on it. They took care of it right away. Not too bad, one glitch the whole school year!
Our school just started SCRIPS last year. It is truly free money! When I was in charge of fundraising, I was looking for ways to capitalize on the money our families are already spending.
We now have parents asking when is the next SCRIPS order being placed.
Our christmas order was the biggest... I believe I had $30,000.00 worth of gift vards spread across my table and 4 people to help sort them out.
I know many schools make ooodles of money, but I think the ones who earn the most are tuition-based schools where each family's scrip profit is directly applied to offset their tuition cost. That's pretty good incentive to use scrip.
We are a public school which started to dabble in scrip last year. It's a win/win fundraiser because your customers arent' paying anything extra, and the PTO gets the profit. Our challenge is getting our parents into the habit of ordering scrip cards. Last year, we made about $800 on scrip, $600 of it in December. This year, we hope to increase our profit as families become more familiar with the program.
Personally, I don't see scrip replacing our one-time big catalog fundraiser because the scrip money is unpredictable and spread out over the year. But maybe someday, if we really educate our parents, or build a big cushion of $ (not my favorite use of hard-earned $). This year's budget is only $600 for scrip - I hope we are pleasently surprised and we make tons more.
It's a job for two people. It's important to split the task so one person collects, counts, and tallies the orders, and the other person actually places the order with the scrip company. Since the big scrip companies automatically deduct your payment from your bank account, tight financial controls are a must. By separating the duties, you won't have a lone scrip coordinator who adds a card or two to the monthly order for herself, and then forgets to pay the PTO for her cards. Not necessarily intentionally dishonest, just sloppy. Split the duties and eliminate the risk.
Is it worth it?? If you can find 2 people who will work well together, it's free money.
Do any of your schools do this? I have only recently even heard the term "scrip". I've looked at lots of different school's websites and seems like lots of schools do it. It looks like a huge amount of work. Can anyone tell me if it's worth it?
Thanks
Shelly
