We just finished our one big catalog fundraiser and made budget, $14k profit for a school of 720 students. That's down a smidge from last year's actual, but still met this year's budgeted plan. This is the 8th year we've used the same company, and have had good succuess. However, our contract is now expired and we're considering a completely different approach to fundraising next year. Another school in our district, and others I'm sure, made loads of money on a "Fun Run". Before we commit to a another contract, we're going to research this idea thoroughly.

We also do the Kroger program. We only have about 50 families signed up so far, but make nearly $1,000 a month. This program is almost reason enough to be a 501c3. We can't rely on it for our major budget, since the money comes in over the course of the year, and you can't really predict people's shopping bills. But it's a great supplement.

I am a new President this year. Over the summer, our surveys showed that the parents were really burned out with the massivefundraising attempts that occurred last year---(in the fall there were five or six different catalog fundraisers plus an International Food event etc.) We put together a different plan that appears to be working well. We only did one catalog fundraiser/ giftwrap/ cookie dough (which came in at about 90% of last year) but we combined it with a "write a check" option that parents had asked for. We actually made what we needed to make when the donations and the sale were combined. Parents appreciated being able to just write a check to the PTO, if they did not want the hassle of selling stuff. We had about $3000 donated plus about $9,000 in the catalog profit.
Instead of having the big extravaganza food fair, we switched to simpler hot dog dinners just before every PTO meeting (they have brought in about $650 each) to make things more convenient for parents.

Last we got started on the Kroger's card plan, since just the beginning of the year we have earned $2000 from Kroger's, which is a big help too. Try the Kroger idea. We pre-bought cards $5 and sold them every morning in the morning drop-off line. We went to all the parent orientation nights for each grade and explained how the cards work. We have 200 plus active cards right now and plan that we will be making about $2000 a month from the program. If you have Kroger's in your area you should try it, it is easy, and costs you nothing!!! except the time to set it up.

We have switched companies the last two years but have been significantly down both times. We are running a cookie dough event next month that was supposed to fund a long term goal, but is now going for the operating budget. We will see if trying something totally different will help. My son suggested we form a student committee because he didn't care for the incentives offered and thinks if the adults had some child input, they might be able to better decisions about what students will want to work for.
I did forget, this was our first year running a prerecorded kickoff instead of a live assmebly because we were asked to decrease the amount of time our group is taking children out of instructional time-I could take this serious if I didn't have so much trouble keeping track of all the times my children have been pulled from instructional time for silly stuff that they have no clue about. By the way, we have not pulled children from instructional time at all this year!

We are just finishing our our fall catalog sale and for the last two years in a row since switching to a new company our sales have increased. I agree with the poster who said sometimes switching keeps it fresh. We also chose a catalog that was loaded with everything and anything to give people more selection.

I have to tell you that due to the economy, gas prices, & the hurricane, we had anticipated doing worse this year and we are actually shocked to discover we are going to make $500 - $1000 more then last year.

We switched to Paragon Promotions this year for our catalog fundraiser and we were up about $3000 in sales from last year. We started our campaign in the middle of August and ended it just as hurricane Katrina hit so we weren't affected by that tragedy. We made about $1000 more than we budgeted for, so we should be OK if our Spring fundraiser is down a little.

I find that its good to switch companies once in a while. The merchandise isn't stale even though it seems like a lot of them do the same type of products. I also think that the hurricanes and price of gas had a lot to do with your declining profit. I know that we had to seriously cut back our home budget due to gas. The economy isn't as good as it was a few years ago. (You mean it was good?????)