[Lorrie0592]

I have some questions. I own a company and I offer fundraisers. I am trying to get into some of the local schools but before I call them I would like to know the following.

When do you start looking for fundraisers for the year?

What do you look for in a fundraiser?

Who actually makes the decision on which fundraisers they are going to do?


Any information or insite you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

[Chief Family Officer]

From the PTA perspective (at least ours, which has really pushed fundraising due to district budget cuts), a *new* fundraiser would be great if it required very little effort on our part. So, for example, if your fundraiser is "come to my store/restaurant on X day between Y and Z hours and I'll donate 25% of the profits to your school," that's easy and doable. But if the fundraiser is "sell 100 cases of my product and I'll give you 25%," we would likely pass because we already have fundraisers like that in place and really can't take on a new project like that - unless you guaranteed a minimum amount that was roughly equivalent to what we make on the fundraiser that's already in place. But of course, all PTAs are different and maybe the ones in your area would be interested in the latter type.

Having said all that, I have no idea how other PTAs are structured or if they're all the same, but for ours, I would recommend calling the school and asking them to put you in touch with the PTA president, who would be able to say "yes, tell me more" or "no, we're not interested in that" or put you in touch with the fundraising coordinator, depending on what you have to say.

Good luck!

[Lorrie0592]

Thank you.

That helps. I do have a minimum but it's pretty low. it's basically 5 cases or 60 candles and they earn 50%. I will even deliver it as long as they are local.

[saving$inmaine]

I am the president of our middle school pta. We look in april to set uo for the next year. We look for things that are easy to sell, and priced for people to be able to afford them! We love things that come prepackaged by seller, believe it or not there are some that do not and the amount of time we have to spend seperating each item to the seller is a nightmare! I have final say on approving the fundraiser after all the votes from the pta are in

[Breeze]

I'm on the PTO here. They start looking the end of the current school year at fundraisers.

Honestly, I couldn't answer your other questions because I'm not on that side of it yet.

[Lorrie0592]

[quote=saving$inmaine;3549875 We look for things that are easy to sell, and priced for people to be able to afford them! We love things that come prepackaged by seller, believe it or not there are some that do not and the amount of time we have to spend seperating each item to the seller is a nightmare![/QUOTE]


Are you talking individual orders or the products them selves? Because in the past when I have done fundraisers for the local churchs I actually separated them by the product and the scents. This way they could check to make sure they received everything that they were supposed to.

[SD19565]

I am on the board at our PTO. We approve the fundraising in the spring for the following school year. That is a tentative approval, with final approval coming over the summer when we submit our fundraising paperwork to the school (used to be to our school board and now just to the principal of our school).
You want to make it as easy as possible for the school - our PTO uses a local company and they package everything by student for us. They set up everything and make it read easy for the PTO parents.
My suggestions would be to find out the schools that you want to conduct business with. Find out if they have a PTO/PTA/HSA or whatever their parent organization is called. Find out when their meetings are and if their meetings are "open to the public". I would see about making a personal appearance to pitch your idea. Leave some samples for the members to use and get their personal information to follow up. The samples could even be something small, but it shows off your product. Sometimes in person will get you the contract.
Also you might want to contact PTO Today and see what it would cost to rent booth space in your area. They run annual events across the nation. Don't know what the cost is, but might be worthwhile.
Also, don't just narrow yourself to the PTO, a lot of the little league, sport groups (even within the school), music associations, etc need to fundraise and you might be able to get your foot in the door with them first.
Consider offering an "incentive" for first time organizations, referrals, or "sign a contract with our company by 'x' date". These catch my interest. There are various ideas that you can play around with here. (include this in the information below)
Lastly, provide a professional packet to the organization. It doesn't have to be too elaborate, but our PTO gets deluged with requests for fundraising. Some of the letters are copies of copies of copies and the words are blurred. A nice folder (get them over the summer when they are dirt cheap at Staples/Walmart/etc), intro letter, about your company, commission structure (make this its own sheet), letters of recommendation, sample catalog (if you have one), and professional business card. Also consider some type of reply form/postcard to include in the packet for the organization to send back to you for more information.

As a last side note, the company that our PTO uses is a local company but does quite a bit of business in our area. Each year they do a thank you luncheon (nothing super fancy) for the organizations that have used them for fundraising. This might be worthwhile to consider once you start to build the business up. They did 12 different luncheons throughout Pennsylvania. The one I attended had maybe 50 people there (it was an open house type luncheon-come and go as you please), they showed the upcoming line for next year, provided a small gift for coming, and gave away a couple "Restaurant.com" gift certificates. The schools that I mingled with while at the event all stated they are consistently using this company because of the caliber of service they provide. I met two other schools that were looking to use this company and actually signed the contract at the luncheon because of all the nice things they heard from the repeat customers.

[SD19565]

Also make sure you have a professional website (and spell check everything).
Do you have a Facebook Fan Page?
And don't forget to see if the local PTO/PTAs in your area have a facebook page. You can always contact the PTO/PTA through that as well.