My kids started out at a catholic school...they had a great idea for fundraising...
At the beginning of the school year, every family had to pay a $200 fundraising fee. They held no traditional fundraisers at all. Each family, through volunteerism, could earn back $100 of the fundraising fee.
Every time you volunteered for one hour at the school, you would receive a voucher worth $10. Before the last tuition payment was due, you had to turn in your volunteer vouchers (maximum of ten allowed)and that dollar amount would be deducted from your final tuition payment.
The idea was great because it took care of fundraising way (and families were thrilled not to have to sell anything!) and at the same it took care of volunteerism, which is often in short supply at catholic schools because family's often feel that if they are paying for their kids education, they shouldn't have to volunteer too.
They also sold scrip, and gave a portion of the proceeds as a credit on tuition to encourage more buying of it...
As president of our Catholic's school PTO, I'd like to get together with other Catholic school PTOs around the country to talk about specific fundraising and PTO issues for those families in a catholic school environment. Anybody interested?