What Insurance Coverage Does Your PTO Have?

Insurance protects your group from financial loss or theft and is a relatively small expense that has the potential to offset a much larger one.

Research & confirm exactly what coverage, if any, is available from the school then talk to the brokers that understand the types of coverage a PTO may need.

RV Nuccio & Associates, Inc. has worked nationally with PTOs, PTAs, Booster Clubs and School Support Groups since 1976. Their program of insurance products has been designed specifically with these school groups in mind and is insured by FIREMAN'S FUND, one of our nation's oldest and most respected insurance companies.

Click here to learn more about the types of insurance.

Visit rvnuccio.com for more information on their PTO insurance programs and pricing.

Have a Ball With a 50/50 Golf Tournament Raffle

Some ideas just work and work well. Charity fundraisers use them again and again;  but we're always looking for creative ways to put a new twist on an old idea. That's why when I heard about the “50/50 Golf Ball Drop”, I just had to share. Not only for you to use at your next golf tournament, but also to get you thinking creatively about every event you plan.

At a local nonprofit's recent charity golf tournament, they decided to sell numbered golf balls instead of paper tickets for the 50/50 cash raffle. Each ball sold for $10 and the winner received 50% of the funds raised from this raffle.

About 3 hours into the golf tournament, they hoisted the basket of golf balls high into the air over the practice tee hole. This can be done with the assistance of a local trucking company or ladder truck from the fire department. The balls were all simultaneously dropped to the ground. The winner is the ball that makes it into the hole first; so if multiple balls fall into the hole, the ball at the bottom wins. If no balls fall into the hole, the ball closest to the hole wins.

How fun is that to watch!

Here's a few administrative tips:

1. Ask a local driving range to donate the used golf balls.

2. Print one number on each golf ball using a permanent marker. Place them in egg cartons to keep track and ensure there's no duplicates. Keep a printed list of who purchased each number.

3. This particular organization used paper forms as they sold each raffle to record the name, address, phone number, and email address of the buyer. Just prior to the day of the tournament, they assigned each buyer their ball number(s) and emailed the numbers to the buyers ahead of time. Using this method means the buyers wouldn't have to be present to win.

When I first heard about the 50/50 Golf Ball Drop idea, I thought 'how fun to be able to hand the buyer their golf ball(s) when they buy into the raffle. They'll be able to hold onto them and possibly display the ball(s) on their desk at work as a constant reminder of the organization they've supported'. I was thinking ADVERTISING beyond just this golf tournament.

But, this would mean that every buyer would have to attend the tournament in order to participate in the ball drop. So as an alternative, if your budget allows, purchase a second set of golf balls printed with a Thank You from your organization. These can be purchased online for about $1.00 per ball and would be for the buyers to keep. The used balls donated by the local driving range are kept at your organization and these are the ones included in the actual ball drop.

This creative thinking should be applied to every event you organize. Take an old idea and make it new.  Relate it back to your event theme. It will keep supporters interested and your organization profitable.

Click here for details on how to plan a charity golf tournament.

Re-Invent Your PTO With the New 4Ps

Tad Griffin of GolfTournamentSupplies.com is always passing along great ideas to me. This week he emailed me an interesting article by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.

In John's article titled, The 4P's of a Fully Alive Business, he re-invents the the 4 P's of Marketing from the 1960's to fit today's market.

John talks about the new 4 P's as:

Passion

Purpose

Positioning

Personality

He says, “The leader of a business must have a great sense of passion for the business, but they also must be able to connect that passion with purpose in order to bring out the desire to commit in others.” And, “Brands that start with purpose over product can effectively enter most any market with the same positioning and compete with entrenched category leaders.”

This may be a business article, but it fits what I've been teaching you about operating a school PTO like the small business it is. If your PTO needs a new marketing strategy to increase it's membership or promote it's events you'll find John's full article very helpful.

Healthy Eating and a Chance to Win $1,000

Have you signed up for Grant Wrangler's Bulletin yet to receive their email updates on K-12 school & teacher grants? It''s a great resource. This week they featured what I like to call a healthy challenge.

Produce For Kids (PFK) is offering K-6 classrooms a chance to win up to $1,000 in their Play With Your Produce Challenge. Simply track students' healthy eating routine for a week and incorporate fruits and veggies into a creative lesson plan. Entry deadline is October 30, 2011.

Visit Grant Wrangler or PFK for details on the Challenge. Visit PFK's Lesson Plan Ideas page and PTO Ideas' Health & Wellness page for some creative ways to incorporate fruits & veggies into a lesson plan.

Good Luck!

How to Use Social Media to Promote Your PTO

I'm constantly talking about the importance of getting connected to potential sponsors & donors, staying connected, and building these relationships.

I read a great article this morning by Kym McNicholas at Forbes titled How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Small Business.  It had some fantastic tips that I thought can easily be adapted to a PTO, which is essentially a small business.

Check out the full article...

An ItsyBitsyThrifty Fundraiser Idea

I recently spoke with Ann Marie from ItsyBitsyThrifty who explained how schools can raise money by collecting children's clothing donations and then consigning at ItsyBitsyThrifty's semi-annual events held in October and March/April.

The benefits... First, it's like hosting a yard sale, but with a lot less work. Second, there's no cost to the school organization. And, third, it's green fundraising because families recycle all of their unwanted children's items that still have a lot of life in them.

The program could work two different ways. The first is for the school to advertise the program and ask parents to participate by setting up their own individual consignment accounts. Each participant pays a $10 registration fee and 50% of that fee goes to the school organization. They log in their donations so ItsyBitsyThrifty knows to post the sale to their account. They drop off the clothing donations the day before the sale event and earn between 60-75% of each sale.  Participants could help their school even more by designating all of their profits to go directly to the school.

A second way to run the program is similar to a yard sale and requires a lot fewer volunteers. The school group would collect gently-used clothing donations and a school group representative would create a single school account.

Visit the ItsyBitsyThrifty website for more information about the upcoming sale events in October or March/April to register your school for a fundraiser.

Another easy, low-cost way to raise funds for your school!

Running a Successful Online Deal Fundraiser

by Kristen Elworthy, GoodTwo

For many parents active in their children’s schools, the start of the school year means the start of an endless march of fundraisers. Whether parents are closing the budget gap with PTO fundraisers or trying to ease the expense associated with traveling sports teams, a sea of cookie dough, wrapping paper, and candles awaits. Meanwhile, these fundraisers are fighting a potent economic trend: people have come to realize how much they love to get a great deal. From reality TV shows like “Extreme Couponing” to deal sites like Groupon, bargains have become increasingly prevalent in all of our lives. So it makes sense that they’re starting to play a part in how we fundraise for our schools as well.

Here at GoodTwo, we think that fundraisers shouldn’t be about inflated prices. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to support your school while getting a great deal. So, we created a free, easy-to-use platform and created deals with local, regional and national companies for discounts off their goods and services. Putting it all together, GoodTwo allows schools to quickly create online deal fundraisers that save supporters money and save fundraisers time and effort, since everything’s done online. 

Taking your fundraising online—and using deals to do it—is a refreshing change from the usual laborious and time-intensive school fundraisers out there. But an online campaign may be something new for your school, so we’ve come up with a few tips for making your online campaign as successful as the other fundraisers you run throughout the year.

1.  Fundraise for Something Specific: All of us are asked for money so many times each month, and we’re learning to be increasingly wary of where our money goes and how much of it actually goes towards the cause we think we’re supporting. Fundraising “for the school” or “for the cheerleading team” might leave some people questioning where their donations will be spent. By being more specific and fundraising “to put a new slide on the playground” or “to fund the cheerleaders’ hotel rooms at their national competition in Orlando,” you’re giving the donor a very specific vision of where their dollars are going.

2.  Make Your Goal Attainable: Often, people are quicker to donate or make a purchase when it’s online—it’s right there in front of them, they don’t need to dig around in their pockets for money, etc. Part of the beauty of using online deals to fundraise is that the price points are low enough to generate excitement and activity. What this also means is that your goal should be adjusted accordingly. Take a look at the price points of the deals you’re selecting and consider the size of your audience. Then set your goal based on that.

3.  Promote and Share: Because an online deal fundraiser is conducted entirely on the Internet, it’s easy to “set it and forget it.” But key to making your fundraiser successful is to promote it within your school, with colleagues, family, friends and the community—the same way you would any other fundraising intiative. An online deal fundraiser is spreadable through a simple link and on GoodTwo, there are actually sharing tools built into the page. Creating frequent Facebook, Twitter and email communications about your fundraiser is key.

4.  Think Local: One of the great things about online deal fundraising is that it’s flexible and can be extremely local. If there are local businesses that typically like to support your school or team, it’s great to get them in on the action by allowing them to offer a deal through your online deal fundraiser. At GoodTwo, we always have plenty of deal options available to you in one click, but we’re also open to working with local businesses to create a really personalized fundraiser for your school.

If you’re interested in hearing more about online deal fundraisers and how they work, you can check out www.goodtwo.com/schools.aspx. Happy Fundraising!

PTO Newsletters & Advertising Sales

As a school, your distribution list is a goldmine to some companies because you have a very specific demographic:  children, young adults, parents with children, and teachers. Take advantage of this by offering to advertise products and services in your monthly PTO newsletter.

Just as a newspaper makes money by selling advertising space, the PTO can print a monthly newletter and sell advertising space.

For a list of  items to include in your PTO Newsletter and tips on how to turn it into a money-maker for your PTO, continue reading...

Not 50 Articles, Just 1

I'm going to be straight to the point today, which is exactly how I designed PTO Ideas.

You may look at PTO Ideas and think it's text heavy, but in fact, it's a summary. 

Other sites will write up to 50 artcles all on a single subject.  They hire freelance writers to say the same thing a thousand different ways.  From each one you may be able to pull one or two lines with key points.

Well, PTO Ideas is a summary of all of those key points!  Most of the ideas you find here are from my own head, but I also scour the web, read through tons of articles and add the key points of what I read to PTO Ideas.  Here you'll find a single page on each subject.

I know you're busy.  So read on and feel good that I'm using your time efficiently.

Best,
Vicki Blaze
PTO Ideas Editor & Publisher

The Magic Number

So what's the right amount of fundraisers to run during the school year?  How do you decide what that magic number is?  Here's some tips to help you figure it out...

1.  Know Your Expenses.  Before you start to do any type of fundraising, you first have to know for what you're fundraising.  Once you know how much money you need to raise to cover your expenses, only then can you decide how you'll raise it.

2.  Choose Your Main Fundraiser.  Make a list of potential fundraisers.  Decide which one you'd like to make your biggest fundraiser of the year and go all out!

Advertise like crazy and really build it up.  Use your best incentives (i.e. prizes) during this fundraiser.  Do not run any other fundraisers at the same time as this one because you don't want supporters to have to split their resources just yet.  Let supporters know how much you hope to raise and that if you reach your goal, you'll be able to reduce or even eliminate additional fundraisers later in the year. 

So what fundraisers can yeild the greatest return... obviously those with the lowest costs and the highest profit.  Here's a few that do well...

PTO Ideas' Spelling Challenge
PTO Ideas' $5ForKids Campaign
Calendar Raffle
Auctions
Golf Tournaments

3.  Re-evaluate Your Status.   You now know how much you raised from your main fundraiser.  Did you reach your annual fundraising goal?  If not, choose which fundraiser or two (or...I hate to even say it... but 3 if needed)  you can run to get you to your goal. Here's a few we like to use as additional fundraisers...

Cookie Dough
Bake Sale
School Store
Game Show Night


Finally, fundraise efficiently.  Remember that both your volunteer's and supporter's time is precious so if you get the job done with the least amount of events, then you've done well.

Start Recruiting!

By now, many of you have already started school.  So have you started recruiting?  Yes, recruiting!

As I've said many times before, a PTO is a business.  When businesses need new employees they come up with a plan and actively recruit them.

So what's your plan?  Here are some ideas on how you can recruit new PTO members...

1.  Ask the principal for a list of Kindergarten and 1st grade parents.  Divide the list up between a group of active PTO members, including the PTO officers.  Call each parent and personally invite them to the first PTO meeting.  Be prepared to answer questions about volunteer opportunities and let them know exactly what the money raised is put toward.

2.  Set up a PTO table where the parents congregate to pick-up their children after school.  Most likely it's on the walkway by your main door.  Each day, ask an active PTO member or two to man the table with a volunteer sign-up sheet. Have surveys available for parents to complete and take suggestions on what they'd like the PTO to accomplish this year.

3.  Publish your first PTO newsletter of the school year.  At least 2 weeks prior to the first PTO meeting, send out  a printed newsletter  with oodles of information;  including the names and contact information of the PTO Executive Board, PTO meeting dates, times and location, PTO website address, volunteer opportunities, descriptions of annual PTO programs and events, descriptions  of PTO savings programs, and a list of websites where parents can research new ideas (i.e.  http://www.ptoideas.com/). 

Finally, represent your PTO as a welcoming, friendly group.  Approach each and every person with a genuine smile, because they will always remember how you made them feel.

Continue reading for lots more ideas on how to increase PTO participation...