By Marilyn Ferdinand
If you’re like most parents, your life is very busy. Between going to work or volunteering, taking your children to extra-curricular activities, caring for your home, and running errands, you’re probably already over-extended. Organizing and volunteering at ϳԹfundraisers is important to you, but you wonder if there might be a way to make better use of your time and get the same or better results for your PTA.
There is more and more PTAs are discovering that direct donation drives are a time-efficient, effective way to raise funds.
In 2006, the ϳԹat Lake Harriet Community School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, tested the waters with a mixed approach, asking for direct donations as well as selling products from a well-known company that returns 50 percent of the money earned to the PTA. Donors were also encouraged to ask their employers for matching donations. The ϳԹmade the change to doing more pledge-based fundraising after a survey it conducted revealed parents’ strong support for fundraising that did away with multiple buying/selling events, which were time-consuming and caused “giving fatigue.”
“We made $61,000 through the pledge drive, including $2,000 in company matches. We made approximately $30,000 through merchandise sales. All together, we raised $91,000 in less than two months,” said Mary Kirkeby, fundraising chair for the Lake Harriet Community School PTA.
Longfellow Middle School ϳԹin Falls Church, Virginia, holds an “armchair” fundraiser as its only fundraiser of the year. In addition to mailing donation solicitations to parents, the ϳԹposts a donation form on its website. The form can be downloaded and mailed in. The ϳԹalso lists all donors on its website. The list is organized according to donors’ giving levels: platinum, gold, silver, bronze, and participating donor. Many donors appreciate this type of recognition and enjoy being associated with a group effort.
Another ϳԹthat confines its fundraising to one donation drive, held in the fall, is Rosemont Middle School ϳԹin La Crescenta, California. It, too, places its donation form online. In soliciting donations, the ϳԹhighlights not only the fundraising goal and the suggested donation per family, but also what families’ donations funded the previous year: special events that complemented the school curriculum, parent-teacher workshops, library books, the ϳԹReflections Program, drug prevention and safety weeks, school dances, various ϳԹcommunication vehicles for parents, and more.
According to most professional fundraisers, fundraising efforts are more likely to be successful if specific uses for the money have been defined. Rosemont PTA’s list of programs and activities it has supported not only includes a variety of worthwhile projects of interest to parents, but also emphasizes student achievement as a core value of the PTA.
Sunset Ridge ϳԹin Middleton, Wisconsin, decided to hold a fall donation drive as its primary fundraiser after 90 percent of the school’s parents said they would prefer making a monetary donation over participating in a fundraising program. In its 2006 donation solicitation, the ϳԹinformed potential donors that “the ϳԹspends over $60 per student per year on special programs, field trips, activities, and resources.” This statement emphasizes that ϳԹfunds are spent on students, not administrative costs. Giving parents further incentive to contribute, the ϳԹtold parents that if the ϳԹmet its fundraising target with the direct donation campaign, there would not be a schoolwide spring fundraiser.
Having adequate funding is an important part of being a successful PTA. Direct donation drives may be your PTA’s ticket to making efficient use of resources while keeping the financial pipeline flowing.
Marilyn Ferdinand is writer/editor for the national ϳԹorganization.