Tamo- we have tried several gift wrap companies and we havve found that Innsbrook had the best quality of items and the best prizes. The representative we had drove us crazy but we just try to get past that because we always make a good profit with them (580 children= 13,300.00)

Innisbrook is one of the big national fundraising companies. As with all of the national companies, the service you get is up to the company representative. If you have a bad experience, it is more than likely, you have a bad rep. I would suggest to any fundraising chairperson that you ask for and check the references of any rep who you plan to work with. A hint about references, don't ask the rep for names, ask what schools they have worked with in the past year and contact the person in charge of fundraising yourself. Of course, the rep will only give you names of people that will give him/her a great reference.

As always, make sure any contract you sign is specific, and any agreed upon changes are noted and initialed. When a fundraiser goes bad, it is usually due to a vague contract, in which there is no recourse for recovery.

Good luck [img]smile.gif[/img]

Tamo! Regarding Innesbrook, did you not read what ptsoparent wrote in the lead discussion? I don't know if they are any good or not, but I thought it kind of funny that you would ask that in the same discussion, about a totally different thing and not have read what the original discussion leader wrote...lol... :eek: [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Just signed with Innsbrook did anyone else have feedback on them. Positive I hope. We did Great Amereican and made 18000 with an enrollment of 542. [img]redface.gif[/img]

PTSO parent,
Here's my 2 cents! Before I was involved in our PTA I had a totally different view of fundraising and I couldn't understand why we did the gift-wrap/candy sale. Now I know. Those companies give you 50% profit AND they have everything bagged by student and homeroom. That's our fall fundraiser. Within the last week I participated in two fundraisers - our elementary schools where we sold yankee candles and humanitees t-shirts- profit? Close to $5,000. for our school of 300 kids. And then there was the music parents fundraiser- this is a group of about 400 middle and high school kids in chorus and band. We did a fruit sale with a National company- profit? $1,700. And alot of work. My point (honest, I'm getting to it) is that when you present your fundraising options make sure you point out the potential profit and effort involved. To meet our budget requirements we need x amount of dollars. In our elementary school we have a fundraising committee that looks over the fundraisers and may recommend one but the decision is usually the executive boards. Let us know what happens! Kathie

Thank you for the above comments - however, I think I was misunderstood...our organization has no problem running our meetings. We always do a vote by ballot no matter what...we have set fundraisers every year -(they are always decided on in April)and have always given our parents the opportunity to vote...however, I was hoping some parents might have had copies of a particular ballot I could look at...our goal is to present 3 to 4 choices: Gift Wrap & Jog A Thon (choice 1), Cookie Dough & Jog A Thon choice 2) , etc...we already know parents' opinion on fundraising and the vote is to be taken first thing at the April meeting...we did a fundraising survey, open discussion, had reps come to the meeting, etc. We as a board try and not decide everything for our group. We have very active parents and feel they should be given the choice of what they want to sell (or not sell) (we do many family fun nights throughtout our year and they raise funds as well)..if you have a particular ballot etc, please let me know..