# Enough with the goddamn fundraising! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 2, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502 "2012-03-02T00:23:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/41 "2012-03-05T00:55:48Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Yup. For instance, in 2010 the [total compensation of the Clear Channel CEO](http://www.rbr.com/radio/clear-channel-rolled-out-bonuses-again-in-2010.html) 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.** > [@Vita\_Beata](#): > > Kimstu, I’m on the side believing that good leadership doesn’t require huge compensation (especially if asking for subsidies and fundraisers) .. **but private companies are free to pay grossly excessive payments if shareholders agree.** Fair enough. Let them defend their compensation on that basis, then, and leave the “good leadership requires excessive compensation” whining at the door. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/42 "2012-03-05T13:38:06Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > I have no kids, but my cousin’s daughter attends a private, pricy Catholic high school. In addition to the ten to twelve grand a year each student pays, the school wants 20 bucks per ticket for every school play you attend, and they also insisted that every kid had to own an iPad as well, so the parents got to fork over for that too. > > Is this normal for a private school? No. That’s \*far \*less than she’ll eventually be pressured to pay for, if it’s a normal school - private or public. We were actually pressured far more heavily and for larger, specific dollar amounts when my daughter was in a Catholic school for preschool. Preschool! There will be popcorn sales, gift wrap sales, chocolate bar sales and then a few different “events” (dinners or pep rallies or similar) where she’ll be expected to pony up donations in the three digits. There will be at least one raffle where tickets are $100 each, and they’ll send home a book of 5. They may tell her that she can return the unsold ones, but if you do, you get the hellbound stinkeye from the principal. $20 for a ticket to the school play \*is \*expensive, though. Around here, they tend to be in the $7-10 range. But if it meant not being accosted by urchins selling chocolate bars to raise funds for show choir, I’d pay the $20 for the play. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/43 "2012-03-05T14:08:03Z")
It’s been a couple of years since my kids have come home with the annual giftcrap catalog they used to get every September. They too had the incentive of “kids who sell xx points worth get to go to this REALLY KOOOL PARTY” - without realizing that every item counted just as 1 point, and if those overpriced items sold for an average of 10 dollars apiece they’d have to sell HUNDREDS of dollars of stuff. I flat out refused to support this - won’t let 'em go door-to-door, won’t let 'em pester relatives (none of whom are local anyway). Rarely, I’d order 1-2 things. One year, Dweezil was in the band. Less than 2 weeks after giftcrap 1 (schoolwide) ended, he came home with a NEARLY IDENTICAL catalog for **band** fundraising. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/44 "2012-03-05T15:55:35Z")
You might want to get ahold of the PTO’s formal bylaws, and see if there’s anything in there about running at a deficit. Many organizations have specific rules agianst that. Also, is this a public or private school? If it’s public, it may be a good idea to see if your district has their own foundation, which should be picking up the slack for non-school specific activities like the adult literacy program. Things like that are a much better fit for a traditional fundraising program (i.e. not making children do the work). ---
**Author:** ![batsto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/45 "2012-03-05T18:39:00Z")
My wife quit the PTO at out school because it seems that, while they constantly did fundraisers, they almost never actually spent the money on anything. Every now and then they would, but it never seemed to be something for the kids. The PTO was sitting on something like $9000 at one point, but every suggestion that they spend it on something that the school needed was immediately shot down. But a lot of folks give, thinking the cash strapped schools need the support. And yet, after three years on the PTO, the only thing we ever saw them spend any real money on was a projector for the librarian. We still haven’t seen why she actually needed it. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/46 "2012-03-06T16:02:14Z")
I didn’t mind buying a little something from the fundraisers until there got to be too many of them. Sunday afternoons, the doorbell would ring multiple times, kids selling chocolate bars - I like chocolate, but it got really annoying… And we parents were expected (like with Girl Scout cookies) to take the stuff (catalogs, order forms) to our offices and try to sell it to our co-workers! Sorry, enough is enough, I bought my last $8 sheet of gift wrap in the high school years and we just ignored it from then on. (Oh, and I would get Christmas presents from relatives who felt “they had to give me something!” - yeah, presents of stuff from THEIR school’s fundraisers!) ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/47 "2012-03-06T16:46:58Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > You might want to get ahold of the PTO’s formal bylaws, and see if there’s anything in there about running at a deficit. Many organizations have specific rules agianst that. > > Also, is this a public or private school? If it’s public, it may be a good idea to see if your district has their own foundation, which should be picking up the slack for non-school specific activities like the adult literacy program. Things like that are a much better fit for a traditional fundraising program (i.e. not making children do the work). It’s a public school. I understand the funding problems; our esteemed governor, Tom “Never met a driller he didn’t like” Corbett, has cut state education funding to the bone and then some, and districts are stuck finding the money somewhere. I get that. I’m just annoyed that the response from the PTO is to have another fundraiser. They don’t seem to be looking for other money, such as grants or corporate donations. The adult literacy program fundraiser is a district-wide thing that funds a program that isn’t run by the district; it’s run by the local adult employment training program. That money doesn’t even see the schools, so far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/48 "2012-03-06T18:49:11Z")
> [@Vita\_Beata](#): > > Kimstu, I’m on the side believing that good leadership doesn’t require huge compensation (especially if asking for subsidies and fundraisers) .. but private companies are free to pay grossly excessive payments if shareholders agree. Whoa…wait…hold on. Are you ACTUALLY going to plant your flag on this hill? ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/49 "2012-03-06T18:50:50Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > You just might be on to something there. I have no problem with a few fund raisers here or there, if it’s limited to optional activities (like the class trip). However, I think that in the case of essential school supplies, they shouldn’t need fund raisers…and if the budget is that short, maybe it’s time for some news articles about how teachers are paying for supplies from their own pockets. Few care. It’s one of the reasons I left teaching. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/50 "2012-03-06T20:21:44Z")
> [@batsto](#): > > My wife quit the PTO at out school because it seems that, while they constantly did fundraisers, they almost never actually spent the money on anything. Every now and then they would, but it never seemed to be something for the kids. The PTO was sitting on something like $9000 at one point, but every suggestion that they spend it on something that the school needed was immediately shot down. But a lot of folks give, thinking the cash strapped schools need the support. And yet, after three years on the PTO, the only thing we ever saw them spend any real money on was a projector for the librarian. We still haven’t seen why she actually needed it. I think it’s time for a serious audit of all the funds raised. What do you want to bet that at least some of that money has vanished into thin air? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/51 "2012-03-06T21:41:01Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > It’s a public school. And? PTOs are often separate organizations (or at the very least operate with some modicum of organization, in the form of bylaws), and nearly every public school corporation in my area has its own foundation. It’s definitely a much larger discussion to start, involving people higher up the decision ladder - but in the long term is an excellent solution to diversifying funding streams and unburdening the child slave labor that typically takes place in the unending cycle of candy peddling. ---
**Author:** ![Vita\_Beata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@Vita\_Beata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vita_Beata)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502/52 "2012-03-06T22:03:07Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Whoa…wait…hold on. > > Are you ACTUALLY going to plant your flag on this hill? I’m reading this as snark, so I will pick up my flag and point it in a menacing fashion towards BlinkingDuck. If this wasn’t snark, then I will respond: I’m just adding to the fundraising vents and adding my own annoyance at the pleas for the masses to send in their $50 or they won’t be able to afford Pro-o-o-Gram-ing .. when the president of NPR is being compensated at 3 times what is paid to the Pres of USA. As to the 11 million for Clear Channel .. can we ask those nuns who protested Goldman Sach’s compensation to occupy Clear Channel? I’m fearing that I’ve hijacked a thread about school fundraising, so my apologies to the OP, and I’ll be done here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-goddamn-fundraising/614502.md?page=2)