School fundraising

School fundraising or school fund raising is the practice of raising money to support educational enrichment programs by schools or school groups (e.g., parent-teacher organizations, booster clubs, etc.). One of the most prevalent practices in the United States is product fundraising. Schools and other non-profits raise $1.7 billion each year by selling popular consumer items. Eight out of 10 Americans support these types of programs. In addition, schools and school groups such as their Parent Teacher Organization and Parent Teacher Association find many creative ways to raise funds—from bake sales, dinner events, auctions and school carnivals to more aggressive advertising, affinity programs, grant writing and straight forward donation requests.

Product fundraising has its origins in the early 20th century. The practice typically involves the purchase and re-sale of popular consumer products by a non-profit group whereupon the group sponsoring the sale keeps a portion of the gross sales. Products can be purchased in bulk and paid for in advance by the organization, then re-sold to supporters. Products may also be ordered using a catalog, order forms and other methods. Supporters pay for the product when the order is placed or upon final delivery. Under some product fundraising models, the school or non-profit organization is required to pay for a fixed number of products in advance.

There are three types of product fundraisers that schools use to generate revenue. (1) Pre-sales Fundraising, (2) Product In-Hand Fundraising, (3) Online Fundraising, with online fundraising rising in popularity over the course of the past decade.

As of 2010, there are over a thousand fundraising companies in the United States offering their products and services to schools and their associated nonprofit parent teacher groups. In the past year, many changes have occurred in the school fundraising industry. A few online fundraising companies, like Piggybackr, are now using social media web apps, such as Facebook and Twitter, to make online fundraising easier for schools and the parents and students who promote them. Additionally, Fundraising Software is also now available allowing a school to have their own platform that makes it easy to engage students, parents, faculty, donors, and alumni with compelling communication campaigns.

Other school fundraisers that generate substantial revenue for schools include auctions and raffles. With these types of fundraising activities, the school requests donations from local restaurants and businesses in their area, that are then offered at the event. In the case of an auction, people are allowed to bid on the dinner, limousine ride, or whatever was donated by the local businesses in the community. In the case of a raffle, people purchase raffle tickets that are then later picked randomly from a container. Often the donations are solicited by parents acting on behalf of the school, who make phone calls, write letters, or know of other parents who work for companies who may be willing to donate.

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