Feeling overwhelmed by fundraising - your thoughts
Just intersted to know how others feel about the amount of fundraising requests that happen these days (I am NOT referring to Facebook pages).
I find with one at school, one at childcare, plus playgroup, plus other hobbies we have that it is almost constant that someone is asking for money in some way shape or form. Easter, for example,is terrible, not only do we have requests to add to the Easter Basket but also to sell the raffle tickets. These days I don't even attempt to sell the tickets, I just buy them all myself. There are pie drives (not interested). The school book club, some books are ok, but don't want to buy one just for the sake of it. School fetes etc Even our local chemist has a sign on the till raising funds for a local charity.
So how do you feel? Do you love them, dread them, don't care? Do you sell the tickets, or just buy them yourself? Do you just wish the school/kinder/childcare etc just charged a slight higher fee instead?
I hate them.
It was OK when we were both working, and could buy a lot of the stuff ourselves, but on one income its really hard.
I hate asking people. we havent had one for school yet, just raffle tickets. But kinder had 3 per term, every term, and softball and auskick have them.
I understand why but it gets overwhelming.
It doesnt help that the sort I do really like (bulbs, plants etc) are not popular.
I find it overwhelming as well - particularly since Iz started kinder. In term 1 and 2 we had something like 13 different fundraisers going on at kinder and on a side note, they have already rasied $7500...:O We have charities that we support and I have decided we will support one thing per term at kinder and that is it. I hate how they gave us the option to opt out but i we didn't then the chocolate box was automatically sent home - ok my fault for not opting out but come on!! Can you tell that I have a few issues with kinder right now. There are loads hun and we try to sell them ourselves but end up buying them ourselves most of the time.
I think all you can do is decide what and how much you will support various charities and kinder/school etc and then stick to it.
The kinder this year had a fruit tree fundraiser, which we found out about too late (no kid there this year), wish they had it last year. Our kinder was odd, they charged an $100 for the year for activities etc, but then fundraise. Other local kinder either charge the $100 or fundraise, but not both.
Wow 13 fundraisers!! I would have cracked it at that.
It bothers me a lot too! But luckily our preschool this year hasn't done a lot of fundraising. I know they are pretty flush though because when I was on the committee a few years back we had a very nice bank balance and we were looking at scaling back the amount of things we did. The school is a shocker though. They even run competitions between the kids and the 'kid who sells the most tickets' wins a prize. Talk about bribery! But apart from the easter one we haven't been asked to donate anything though which is a bonus. The local State Age netball teams are constantly fundraising throughout the year and it gives me the irrits bigtime. It is something that your kids voluntarily participate in and I reckon if you want your child to participate then you should be prepared to pay your own way.
i hate being harrassed at the shops to donate, or the drive through, or the supermarket....and then when i say no they give me a look as if im a bad person, well im sorry i already donate to a charity and i cannot afford to donate to every charity.... give me the ****s....
Our Poultry club has a good fundraiser. They order in large bags of seed, wheat, oats etc and take a cut of the sales. Benefits everybody. We get cheaper grains for the chooks and the poultry club gets some money. Also the pick up is a good time to catch up with other members.
Oh, yes, Bribery. The school had one like that this year, we had to donate jars of stuff and there were prizes for kids bringing them in.
Pre kids I was abused by a father for not buying a raffle ticket. It was so kids from a private school could go on a trip to France. I told him bluntly that if he can pay the private fees, he can pay for his child to go overseas.
The last place I worked at, the Managing Director told me his kids' school had a no junk food policy and it extended to fundraising so they had a pineapple and mango drive instead of chocolate ones.
They are pretty popular though which is the hard part, they always sell all the chocolates.
We have a pie drive that is hugely supported (largely by DH!) but it's pretty expensive.
The toy catalogues are hard because the stuff that is available elsewhere I can a lot cheaper online or at the shops..a few dollars is one thing but the item I was wanting was $130 in the toy fundraiser, and $79 at target.
I like the ones for name labels etc where it's for something I want to buy anyway, and it's also supporting the school/daycare/kinder etc.
Shopping tours I'd do for fundraising too, they're fun.
Urgh, I have to organise half of the fundraising that's done for kinder and playgroup here. I've seen the igures for our kinder and wilst we have quite a good nestegg, the shire has told us that we have to double last year's fundraising. We wanted to have a fundraising levy at the beginning of the year which would have amounted to last years total but one parent kicked up a fuss ( which in the long run, would have saved them alot of hassle and MONEY! It was brought up because our area was hit with major flooding 3 times in 6 months and it would have just saved so much hassle for so many families).
it's frustrating. I'm more peeved that the council is dictating how much we have to raise.
On top of those, I also have netball fundraising and tennis fundraising, and I tell you what the amount of cooking we do as catering for our fundraising efforts is ASTOUNDING... not to mention I really hate cooking. Gah.
Tupperware just came through Childcare today Thankfully it is a low pressure one and I may consider a purchase as I don't mind the odd piece of Tupperware.
Was wondering about grants, especially in regards to those windows that need replacing at Tanstar's kinder. That is something that should be just relying on parental fundraising.
I say no to everything. The only thing I have given to any fundraising was $5 of raffle tickets when the next door neighbour (a little girl) came knocking on my door. We give enough in other ways.
we are mean, mean people and we don't participate in them.
we give money to a couple of key causes we're passionate about, but FFS - if the playgroup costs another $50 a year to sun, ask me for it - don't expect me to buy or sell pies and chocolates and raffle tickets and whatever other stuff you have on your mind every five minutes.
I know that probably sounds mean and stingy, but we have 3 (coming up to 4...) people on one income, one car, one mortgage, and basically no disposable income or free time.
I signed up for playgroup, and I understand there's a cost involved - but I didn't sign up to take fundraising drives to work to try to get everyone to chip in for my kid's play group costs. In the same way I ignore the boxes of chocolate and tupperware order forms when other people bring them for the fundraising for their kids' kinders or Auskick or Guides or whatever.
Ok, Grumplestiltskin has finished her narky contribution ...
I guess it depends. Something like Tupperware (and I'm biased cos I sell it, but anything like that which is not a consumable item) i see as different. If I was going to buy it anyway then id get it from the fundraiser rather than elsewhere given the price would be the same.
Mae of mine is cool - i've stolen his idea. When the kids get given chocs to sell, he asks how much profit that box makes, gives that amount and doesn't take the chocs. Lawdie knows his family and colleagues don't need more chocolate!!!!
I'm lucky in that my work has a kids grant available every 3 years -I got one for my CC which was $2,500 and next year I'll apply for one or the kinder. I figure with grants that it's a big amount and has to be defined what it's for to get it - so it's a definate benefit. I also help apply for other community grants (eg Woolies) instead of selling stuff. But having said that, I do like the bulb fundraisers....
my work doesn't, but they do tons of probono stuff for causes they care about - which is good, because our kids will (hopefully!) grow up seeing that work and philanthropy really can go hand in hand - just with the expectation that we have skills/resources/whatever, so of course we share ...
it's more the constant fundraising drives which drive me nuts ...
I haven't seen the bulb one, but considering I managed to kill mint I don't think I'd be buying them either
Feeling overwhelmed by fundraising - your thoughts
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Thankfully it is a low pressure one and I may consider a purchase as I don't mind the odd piece of Tupperware.
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