We do it all. Our school of 700 population has a direct donation drive ($32,000), Innisbrooke ($18,000), Book fair ($8,000), school wear ($8.000), Jog-a-thon ($15,000), Cookie Dough ($5,000), Scrip ($10,000), auction/dinner ($70,000) and miscellaneous totalling $170,000 annually. It is a lot of work.
A little background. We live in a state that cut programs like music, p.e., art and computer. Our parents decided this were necessary for our children. We pay the salaries for the p.e, computer and music teachers. Our classes (30) each have one or two parents volunteer to be the art docent. The art committee prepares the lessons and the docents teach them.
Successes: Our donation drive became more of a success when we tiered the donations with awards. For example: If you donate $75 you receive a directory (sold separately for $15), if you donate $100 you receive a mascot beanie baby (this is where the kids put pressure on the parents to donate because they want the beanie baby and this is not sold separately), if you donate $150 you received all of the above plus a t-shirt. Your tiers could be smaller depending on how much you wanted to raise.
For the auction we make around $20,000 on art projects the kids make. Each art docent has the class make a single project which is auctioned off. Parents love buying stuff their kids helped make. Our PTO gives each docent a $100 budget. These projects are usually big. For example, the kids tiled the top of a wrought iron sofa table, they painted two seater benches, made a floor size chess board and the kids made the pieces, the kids painted a smaller scale picnic table with game boards painted on it for outdoor play, etc.
We also auction off things like reserved parking space for a year, principal for a day, front row reserved seats at school programs, single teachers donate babysitting, we get a sports pass from the high school for free admission to sporting events for a year, the drama department at the high school donates passes to their plays, and this year for the first time we are auctioning off the priviledge to choose your childs teacher for the next year. All of these things cost nothing but bring in big bucks.
We also give each class a theme eg. gardening, handyman, music, date night, sports, barbie, dress-up and automotive. The class collects donated items and these baskets are put in the silent auction. Makes about $5,000.
The auction is a lot of work and we are researching ways to do this every other year. Scrip has become real popular. We are looking more into that.
Good luck.