Lily,
The first question that came to my mind is whether you really need money. What is the goal for your group? Is it mostly unifying the different schools, and just getting together to talk? You'll get some flack if you appear to be another fundraising group without a goal in mind how to spend it. If you plan to set up like a regular Pto with a budget and by-laws you will be treated with more respect.
I like Pamelina's idea with the painless shopping fundraiser. Another might be to see if the schools would turn over their box tops for education profits to you, starting in September. Good luck!
There's an alternative or at least comlementary approach to getting parents in different schools to financially support your central organization, and that is to ask them to, instead of forking over donations, to do something they would normally do that would generate those donations. There are many ways that this can be accomplished, but we've found one of the most effective is to ask them to shop online at a mall that donates to us when they purchase something. There are also many of these to choose from, but the one we like, because it offers the biggest return, is www.HEARTof.com. In any event, the central point is that you can get people involved in generating money for you sometimes without asking them for donations, which they might resist or resent.
What a great idea! I would say it would be appropriate and I would base amount on the number of sped kids in each school. You may get some resistance though. I might not be to PC here and I'm sure someone will come on and let me know how awful I am but I have heard some rumblings in my own district from parents of non-sped kids so you mind as well be prepared. The biggest agrument will probably be the much higher per pupil cost of sped. (We are already spending so much more of our overall school budget on this--why give them more $$). Or you may even hear about how parents of most sped don't participate in PTA overall. They might worry @ this type of group detracting from their group, etc. Best of Luck on this and just be prepared to answer some of these arguements.
Hello. I would like any PTO members opinion and input on this question.
Some background. We are setting up a new district wide Special Education PTO that will serve 12 school buildngs.
My question is since we will be serving all the schools in the district, is it appropriate to ask each of these 12 individual PTO's for a contribution to help aid us in start up costs?
If the answer is that it is appropriate, how much should we ask for from each school
