Enough with the goddamn fundraising!

The BBQ Pit
1

The PTO at the sprog’s school has decided that it’s OK to hold parents upside down and shake them until all of the money comes out.

Last week, the school had spring pictures (not to be confused with fall pictures, which were taken in September) and the fundraiser for the community adult literacy program. This week was the book fair. Profits from the spring pictures and the book fair go to the PTO for things like field trips, magazine subscriptions, fees for guest speakers at assemblies, and so forth.

Then, the PTO decided that it was going to run at a deficit, so the kids are now expected to sell junk food. I have problems with this, mostly because I don’t want the stuff in the house. Also, the people who contributed to the adult literacy fundraiser are the same ones who will be asked to buy junk food for this fundraiser. I e-mailed the PTO Mommy Brigade member to tell her that the sprog will not be participating in this one, because I disapprove of selling junk food. What I didn’t tell her was that I’m royally pissed off that the PTO apparently can’t work within its budget, and they think it’s OK to shake us down again.

The straw that broke the camel’s back is the “service project” where the kids will donate spare change to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but this is the fifth fundraiser in two weeks and it comes attached to a pizza party for the class that raises the most money. Call me crazy, but it’s not a service project because it doesn’t teach kids to give because it’s a good cause; it teaches them that there should be something in it for them if they participate. In fact, each of these fundraisers comes with a pizza party for the class that sells the most or raises the most. The idea that the magazines they get each week and the library books and assemblies and field trips come from the money they raise isn’t addressed at all; it’s all about the goddamn pizza parties and pep rallies that get the kids wound up and eager to sell. Oh, and the sixth fundraiser is an expected contribution for the sprog’s teacher’s baby gift. I don’t mind that because it’s a personal thing, and I like the sprog’s teacher.

I’m debating whether to go to the next PTO meeting and bitch, but even if I do, nothing will change. It’s still the same PTO Mommy Brigade running things. But the checkbook has snapped shut, as far as I’m concerned. If they can’t get it together, I’m not going to bail them out.

Sorry about the lack of creative invective. I’m beyond furious.

2

Don’t bitch. Just politely and repeatedly insist on seeing the books. It’s the Parent Teachers Organization, right? They should have a careful record of how much they’re taking in from this flurry of efforts. They should have receipts and such for how much they give to charity, and how much on pizza parties. I’m guessing they won’t have any immediate answers. But it’s fair to ask them how many subscriptions and guest speakers a PTA might need.

There might even be something in the bylaws about auditing or reviewing the treasurer’s records. It will piss them off but they won’t be able to resist you.

3

I’m of different minds about this, really. Speaking as a fundraiser, five donation appeals in two weeks is absolutely appalling. We wouldn’t even do five appeals to the same person in two years. There’s no way anybody who wasn’t moved by appeals #1-#4 would be moved by appeal #5. There’s a real law of diminishing returns at that point.

Throwing a pizza party for the class who gets the most donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society…eh, I wouldn’t be up in arms about it. Maybe I’m prejudiced because I know someone who’s been helped by them, but I don’t think a teambuilding exercise in support of a charity is all that bad a thing.

Selling junk food is a terrible idea for a school fundraiser, but way too many schools fall for it. The company which makes the candy gets the lion’s share of the proceeds, and the school gets a tiny fraction but loses a large share of goodwill from the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and put-upon coworkers and neighbors of the parents.

Now, I need to admit here that I was formerly a member of our kid’s PTA board and was their designated fundraising point man. The bottom line is–and you should be acutely aware of this, MsRobyn, as I know you live in PA and Corbett is cutting education funds there–a lot of the financial burden for field trips, plays, presentations, and the like is being offloaded onto PTAs which have little experience in raising money. Sometimes this happens mid-year. Budgeting for a PTA isn’t easy nowadays because they’re expected to pay for a lot of things that come up in the middle of the year. So I have some sympathy for a PTA that’s running a deficit; we made budget every year I was on the board, but if something unexpected came up we easily could have gone in the red.

Now what I did when I worked for the PTA was say, “Look, parents are going to hate us if we send their kids around selling candy or fake jewelry, and we aren’t even going to make that much money anyway. Let’s just ask parents for one donation at the beginning of the year and stress that if we raise enough money this way we won’t have to have any other fundraisers all year.” I drafted a letter we put in the school newsletter, and it worked–we raised more money through that appeal than we did in any previous effort. We even ended up with a surplus that they still have.

Make that suggestion to your PTA. It’s such an obvious thing but the candy and fake jewelry companies are constantly bombarding the PTAs with slick sales packages and fast-talking pitchmen. All I had to tell our PTA was “$20 in donations is $20 to programs,” and that clicked.

4

If the PTO is engaging in questionable practices, such as running a deficit, then that’s certainly something to speak up about and investigate.

I have an 8th grader and a HS senior. As far as the repeated fundraisers go, our policy has always been to pay our PTO dues, and only buy stuff for ourselves that we actually want (Entertainment Book, wrapping paper), and not bother our families or neighbors too much with it. There are some fundraisers (such as Market Day) that we never, ever participated in all these years. If your school is like ours (a public school in a fairly affluent town), the PTO is providing EXTRAS - things that are nice to have, but not vital to your kid’s education. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t worry about all of the fundraisers - just ignore the ones that don’t interest you, and participate in the ones that do, and don’t feel guilty about it!

5

Donating spare change isn’t a service project because (unless the kids are searching couches for coins) they’re not doing anything but bringing in money. (Are the kids rolling the coins?)

This reminds me of something from my high school days. Our vice principal told my class that he wanted us to be the best class ever. In what way? Scholastically? Athletically? Demonstrating good behavior? No, to be the “best class ever” we had to sell the most really tacky Christmas tree ornaments. By doing so, we’d enable those of us in our class who couldn’t otherwise afford the class trip (to Seaside Heights, NJ) to go. He handed out the catalogs to sell from, and dismissed us.

Two weeks later, there was another class meeting. He was so angry he could barely talk. We’d sold next to nothing as a class. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Finally, one kid whose name I’ve forgotten raised her hand. “My parents aren’t allowing me to go on that trip. Why should I have to work so somebody else can go?”

He did not know what to say. I think the trip was cancelled. As far as I could tell, nobody cared.

6

I stopped participating in those fundraisers last year and we’re all happier for it.

I don’t like harassing my family and friends to buy useless, overpriced garbage and a lot of employers are adding rules against bringing school sales stuff to work, so we have a very limited number of options. The last fundraiser we participated in included a prize pack with levels for the number of crap sold. For selling some number of items, Alex could have gotten a ride to the Dairy Queen in a Hummer limo and lunch, which was OMG, FREAKIN’ AWESOME for him, so that was his goal. Haha. I got him to settle on some piece of shit toy in the next lowest tier that he probably can’t even find anymore and only played with once or twice and even for that I had to personally buy EIGHT GODDAMNED ITEMS (which cost probably close to about a billion dollars; I don’t remember exactly but it was an entirely ridiculous amount) to get him to that level.

Never, ever again.

7

This reminds me of the parent meeting for my high school grad. The grad committee said it was going to cost $x for each graduate and asked the parents if they wanted to fundraise or pay it out of pocket. There was a sudden flurry of activity as every parent pulled out their chequebooks.

If it wouldn’t cause the poorer students to be teased, I’d just tell the PTO to say how much they need per student and cut them a cheque for my kid.

8

I have this issue with “Pledge Drives” on TV and radio. I give to NPR and PBS, monthly, yet I still have to listen to them grub for money. Isn’t there some way those who’ve already given can just skip to the programming?

9

You are the last person they want to be able to skip the fundraising. Almost the first rule of fund-raising is that it is always easier to get people who already give, to give more, than to get people who don’t give, to start giving.

Regards,
Shodan

10

Some station say if they raise X number of dollars before fund-raising week, they wouldn’t interrupt programming. Seemed like a good compromise.

11

When I was young, I did one fundraiser a year (for the Boy Scouts), and that was all I cared to do. I can’t imagine even considering doing more than that, and if I considered it, I would still decide it wasn’t worth doing.

12

Just to include a few figures into a thread on fundraising:

The president of PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), Paula Kerger, was paid a salary of 632,233 in 2009.

Kevin Klose, president emeritus of NPR (National Public Radio), received more than $1.2 million in compensation, according to the tax forms the nonprofit filed in 2009.

13

The PTAs around here gave up on selling wrapping paper and whatnot this year, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Instead, we just got a fundraising letter at the beginning of the school year asking for contributions. It has apparently been very successful. They’re still doing some of the other fundraising activities - book fair, pictures, silent auction, etc - but I can live with that.

14

Those salaries seem pretty small. What do the CEO’s of Clear channel or ABC make?

15

Have you considered recommending Box Tops for Education to them? You can either save up points from various products or shop online and earn cash for your school. My child isn’t even old enough to go to school yet and I’ve selected a local school from their site and signed up to support them. All I do is take my normal online shopping habits and do it through their site if possible and a small percentage of my purchase goes to the school. For example, when I ordered flowers for my mother on 1-800-Flowers website I did it there during a bonus point week and got $3.50 donated to the school without doing anything differently than I would normally do. This is a really wonderful way for schools to raise some extra cash and they don’t have to convince you to buy anything you wouldn’t normally buy.

16

Our school district has almost completely given up on the “make the student sell crap” fundraisers, thank god.

They now focus on “dinner out” nights, where the participating restaurant gives a percentage take back to the school and “scrip” gift cards, which you can buy at the school for pretty much every retailer in town and the school also gets a percentage take off those.

In both cases, it’s completely up to the buyer to make the effort if they want to spend and yet it’s stuff they’d often spend money on anyway, not crap.

It’s a win-win. I’d suggest it to your PTO.

17

I’m sure you’re able to google the immense salaries paid at Clear Channel and ABC, which don’t rely heavily upon public subsidies and fundraisers. :slight_smile:

18

If you want a good network of radio-stations, you need to pay the person who runs those stations a salary that’s at least sort of competitive with what they could be making running other networks of radiostations. Otherwise they won’t work for you. The source of funding is irrelevant.

19

I am also sick to death of my son’s school’s constant and unending money beg-a-thon.

Book fairs (at least 3 of them since he started there in August 2011)

Library book drives (donate some over-priced books to the library at $Reasonable Book Price times 10/per copy)

Fundraisers (at least 3 of them) Two of which were food related (cookie dough and popcorn, plus gift wrap)

Pictures (Fall pictures, class pictures, the whole-school-picture (a big panoramic), and now they’re pestering me to buy “Spring pictures” to boot. That’s FOUR picture-related money-grabs in one school year. Seriously?

Every Wednesday they sell scented pencils to the kids for $1.00 each. These are a major fad in the school. Practically every kid in my son’s class has a whole pencil box full of their smelly pencil collections.

Every Friday they sell ice cream and rice krispy treats in the cafeteria to directly benefit the PTA.

The teacher is constantly sending out her own “classroom needs” list, that usually consists of stuff that was on the damned list of crap I had to buy at the beginning of the year, plus random requests for craft supplies, class party stuff, etc. etc. Not a week goes by that there’s not some random thing I need to buy or provide for the class. That’s at LEAST twenty-five separate requests since the beginning of the school year. Probably more.

Can food / non-perishable food drives (at least two this year)

Winter coat / blanket drive

The phys ed / gym teachers are apparently allowed to do their OWN beg-a-thons these days and have, so far, had some sort of cup-stacking event that I was supposed to buy my kid a set of cups for (for $20) and some sort of jump-rope challenge thing that I was supposed to buy a special jumprope for (for $10) and some sort of 5K Fun Run sponsorship thing that I was supposed to pony up some cash for.

Classroom gift exchanges for Christmas and Valentine’s Day, so far. Provide a wrapped book to give a classmate, both times. In addition to the usual Christmas treat bags, Valentines, candy and crap.

A local dentist that requested my kid’s dental insurance information (or a check for $53.00) so that he can swing by the school with his dentist-office-inside-a-truck and clean all the kids teeth. (Seriously, I’m not kidding.)

At least once every couple months, there’ll be some sort of event disguised as a “fun, free family friendly gathering” such as a picnic (bring-your-own-food, of course) Thanksgiving pageant, poetry contest, etc., but once you’re there, you’re ushered into a PTA meeting and provided with a handout detailing the budgetary shortfalls and desperate and dire need for immediate donations. Only after the shakedown can the “fun, free, family-friendly gathering” commence.

Class T-shirts. Each kid is supposed to buy a shirt (color-coded and emblazoned on the back with his teacher’s name) for easier kid-sorting on field trips and special events, apparently. $15 per shirt. Another fund raiser in disguise.

This school is located in a reasonably affluent area with very substantial property taxes, and it’s not like they ever seem to do anything noticeable with all the money they must be fleecing from people.

It’s annoying as hell, and I wish they’d just cut it out.

20

Yup. For instance, in 2010 the total compensation of the Clear Channel CEO was $11,049,749, or nearly ten times the $1.2 million figure you quoted for Kevin Klose (which included deferred compensation) in 2009.

Given that conservatives generally vociferously defend the extremely high compensation levels of industry executives on the grounds that the market has determined that this is what it takes to attract the best-qualified people, I find their complaints about high salaries for leaders of taxpayer-funded organizations a little disingenuous.

After all, government and industry are competing for essentially the same talent pool. If six-figure salaries are necessary to attract high-quality CEO talent, then you can’t blame NPR for offering that kind of money to its execs.

If, on the other hand, you’re going to consider high NPR-exec salaries an outrage, then you need to come right out and admit that good leadership doesn’t require huge compensation, and the high-paid private industry CEOs are just feathering their nests with grossly excessive overpayments.