The school year barely started and your kid already brings an envelope for a PTA Fundraiser. Since last year, I started thinking that there must be better ways to raise Funds than having to hit your friends, co-workers and the like with the latest ‘sale’. Another thing that was on my mind was what percentage of the sales goes to the school PTA itself. Is the end result worth the effort or could there be a better way.
What actually got me going originally on this topic was the discovery of Artsonia. Based in Chicago they call themselves ‘The largest Kids’ Art Museum in the Word‘. Teachers can Upload their Class Art Projects in a Gallery and also turn it in Gifts such as T-Shirts and Mugs. The School gets 15% of the Sales. Especially good if your relatives are scattered all over the country.
For T-Shirts, Mugs, Caps, Messenger Bags and more, some options are Cafepress, Spreadshirt.
For these all you need is signing up for a Store and Ready Made Designs that you upload and deciding what products you want to sell.
Recommended reads on the topic are:
–On-line Fundraising Best Practices: Two Words of Advice from GuideStar.org
-The Grassroots Fundraising Journal
-Also NetSquared whose tag is remixing the Web for Social Change.
Feel free to share with us any other companies or tools that might reduce PTA fundraising events by making them more effective.
Great information! I was thinking the same thing as I was organizing my kids’ fundraising brochures and being overwhlemed by the amount of stuff I wouldn’t ever want to buy if it weren’t for the PTA.
I wonder how hard it is to find fundraisers that actually have value to its cutomers (parents)?