I agree that the family with the business shouldn't be chairing, and as long as they're giving the school the best deal I personally wouldn't have a problem with it. But just realize that LATER it could MAYBE lead to other issues. My only hesitation would be that they weren't giving THE best deal, and it might come back to bite you in the as* later on.

A lot of great points on this. Our school has one set fundraiser per year and that's the principal's policy - so it's easy for us to simply say "sorry, we only do one per year and we're booked".

But that's a "selling/buying" fundraiser. We have lots of other fundraisers all the time. The ink jet cartridges, cupcake fridays, pizza night (a local pizza place gives us $2 for every family that orders pizza on the night of the PTO meeting), McDonald's night (we get percentage of profits for the night, we all get together and eat and have fun), etc.

But those are different in that no one is being asked to sell anything on behalf of the school (candles, etc.) and we don't give prizes to top-sellers or anything so no child feels bad if their family opts-out.

We do have a family event/silent auction in the spring - we hire a dj, sell pizza/soda cheap, have a bake sale, games for the kids, and a silent auction that usually makes us about $4000. Ask the parents who approach you for fundraisers to donate something to the auction. It's a one time, no selling thing, the school benefits, and they get free advertising.

So to sum up - I say go for the cartridge recycling thing, use the family in your school as long as they're competitive, but don't let them chair it just so you can make sure it's all on the up-and-up.

My 2cents

I think the ink jet programs are awesome. It is a way for schools to make money for nothing. No one has to spend a dime to earn money this way. As another poster said "They pay you for your garbage". Plus it is good for the environment!

I would have no problem using these people as long as the pay out price was equal or better then what you would get using another company.
I don't believe they should have to forgo their profit either. As another poster said " why would you let an outsider make money but not them?"

As for other parents having the same business, it is highly unlikely in this area and if by chance it did happen. The answer would simply be that they asked first and unless they were going to offer you a better deal then you had no reason to break your agreement with the other person.

However, I would not let these people chair this program. Chairing this program is very easy as it is very little work. But in order for checks and balances to exist I would get another person to chair it.

I agree that Avon, Tupperware, and the like are very different things and of course you can have any number of parents involved in these businesses. Those I would stay away from

There is a difference between recycling toner cartridges and selling avon or tupperware. You are not asking anyone to buy anything. Just send the used cartridges to school instead of throwing them out.

I do not recall our PTO ever doing fundraisers with the avon, tupperware, etc. type products. There have been some of these types of businesses say, mention your school and we donate a portion of the sale to the school or pto.

Someone posted earlier on a different thread about a gift card fundraiser for the businesses in town--I think that lends itself more to supporting the community than the other stuff talked about here.

The cartridge recycling thing is iffy - it's not as though they have competition, it's recycling and it seems to be a win-win. BUT--a parent/family from the school is profiting from something directly related to the PTO/school--the situation could quickly escalate into a conflict of interest problem. A situation came up last school year when my group was offered the profits from a "Cut-a-thon" at a salon in a neighboring town. Because one of the moms in the school works at the salon, our superintendent felt the potential for trouble was too great (since we're a separate entity we agreed to not hand out the flyers in the school and went through our community instead). The next thing you know other parents will start clamoring to let THEIR business "do something for the school," and it's then your job to: 1)keep the number of fundraisers in check, and 2)weed out the good, the bad and the ugly (and believe me,there are some REALLY ugly ones in the crowd)! Naturally those turned away get offended, and usually start whining about favoritism/nepotism and stirring the pot to make it miserable for everyone.

oddmanout--wherever there's a profit to be made you will ALWAYS encounter the soul-less creeps who take advantage of ANYONE. Check out the older threads on the boards, they're full of stories of people getting ripped off by jerks in their community. If they get a bad name--so what? They rationalize it away. Look at all the people who knowingly bounce checks and never make good on them with fundraisers. In my case with the cut-a-thon it was a no-brainer--we got 100% of the profits and the salon got new customers. But you have to think ahead and realize that not every offer will be as good, and when you turn those people away they might not agree with your decision, be it right or wrong.

Oddmanout--When you have three or more people selling the same stuff, how do you suggest which one to pick?

If you pick the avon rep, then the tupperware rep gets pissed off and accusses you of playing favorites?

If you choose avon does that mean now you have to do it for party-lite, home interiors, tupperware and whatever else anyone in the school sells?

Exactly,where do you draw the line? And just to let you know, this isn't my rule but our principals rule. About 7 years ago we had a problem because they picked a candle fundraiser from someone in the school and next thing you know 3 other parents went in to complain because we didn't choose their stuff for a fundraiser. To put an end to it we (the executive board and the principal) decided not to use reps from our own school.

Other school may not have had a problem but we did and we don't want it to happen again. I'm sorry you don't like it. I guess you can count yourself lucky that you don't own a business and go to our school.