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.

I think it is beyond rude when you get abused for not buying a ticket. I know it is hard sitting there having to sell them, but abusing people for not buying a ticket is just not cool. I had an old man have a go at me once too for not buying tickets in a raffle where the prize was a load of wood - I lived in a flat and didn't even have a fire and I'm not going to buy a ticket if I don't want to win the prize!

Our kindy has increased fees 3 times in 18mths, but has not dropped the amount of fundraising they do. They to expect us to donate the good and then buy/sell the tickets. Oh and then ask for things like tissues and toilet paper to be donated !!

Our school has dropped right back in their fundrasing this year. That is because their parents and friends group of which I am a part off are all studying in one form or another, so we have no time. First time in 2 years we never had a mothers day stall. The only fundraising last term was our Sports Day BBQ, and we usually pump out at least 3 different fundraisers per term. Our school however has increased the amount of excursions or incursions the kids are doing, so everyone is feeling the brunt of that.

When the girls were younger I never sold raffle tickets just sent them back as I had already give 'whatever' towards the prize.
We have had lamington drives (which were really popular), chocolate (I HATE) seeds, easter etc but we suggested that they rotate times as who wants to buy chocolate around easter, mothers/fathers time every year.
GS's kinder just did a pie one which I supported and the pies are really nice so that was a real bonus.
I also used to ask where the money was going as I found the principal was spending alot of it on the garden and not on improving learning.

It is hard finding when and where to draw the line in donations.

Rivlas, I feel more inclined to buy tickets/support a raffle at the school etc if I know what it is going towards. For all their faults, our P&C will always say what they are fundraising for at least.

Rivlas that is a good point - our kinder has wall to wall, floor to ceiling windows that they want to replace - which is obviously going to cost a fortune so I know that it is going to a good cause, however I have been irritated by the number of them at ours! They do make a note of saying, we ask families to choose which fundraisers to support throughout the year but we still get bombarded each week!

We don't get too many. Our school had a massive fete this year which was a huge success and that is really the only big fundraiser. They do small ones like casual day, morning tea day which are a few dollars. They also sell produce from their garden, herbs and vegies, to raise money for more garden stuff. I am always happy to buy that.

I run the wine drive at childcare - funnily enough this is a huge money earner ;) And i participate in the pie drive and pasta drive that they do. Every second year is an auction/trivia night which is always a great social event. I try to keep my participation local and be as involved as possible. Outside of that I have my own charities and stick to them. If other people ask me to buy things I tell them that we are on a very tight budget and that my fundraising dollars have already been committed.

I'm like Pandora - i prefer fundraisers where there is something in it for all parties. bulbs are a fave of mine - but you have to be a gardener for those ones to be appreciated. chocolate i think is so done to death, it's not funny (and i find it depressing that massive boxes of chocolate are sent home with kids - inevitably mum and dad have to pay for at least some of it because they'll have to deal with upset kiddies if they don't). the school my brothers kids go to used to do a fruit drive (spc i think) which was awesome. i guess i dont mind buying things we need from a different source (school fundraiser) and paying a little more for the school to raise money - as opposed to constantly buying raffle tickets or handing over money for the latest "whatever-a-thon" where the kids want sooooooooo badly to raise lots of money so they get the best prizes. i don't mind the photographer ones either ($10 for framed print etc) because again, you get something out of it not much looking forward to E starting kinder/school and having that pressure to sell though. i don't like asking people to give and give and get nothing useful back

i don't mind contributing to charities that aren't pushy - always buy an anzac badge from the other people sitting at the shops etc. i will buy raffle tickets if i can actually use the prize on offer, but if it isn't something i can use, i just don't see the point!

Ugh, fundraising annoys me. I don't mind so much if it's for a decent reason, but I really would prefer they just upped the fees a bit and knocked off the fundraising other than a few large events each year.

Funnily enough the one that irritates me the most is actually my work social club, as they have near constant fundraising which is generally used to subsidise work sundowners that I very rarely attend as they're always on Friday afternoons when I want to get home to my family. Or for the work Christmas do, which is always employees only and no partners/kids so I tend to skip out on that one too.

I have my charities I support, and I don't mind tossing the odd bit of change etc into a tin if I have it on-hand but other than that I tend to refuse to participate and let people call me a grinch.

Between the school, kinder and playgroup there is almost something on all year round. I feel like paying them all $50 at the start of the year and being done with it ;)

We don't like to do too much fundraising at work. Usually we do three things per year. We are doing a goose club now (donated by businesses in community) so parents are asked (but not expected) to sell a book of tickets, then we do a giant hamper at Christmas (parents bring in one or two items) and they sell a book of tickets, the 3rd thing is toy catalogues - which parents purchase items from (usually some great things in them) and we earn 20% vouchers to spend.

We did use to do far more, but felt we needed to scale it back and stop asking parents to contribute so much.

I don't agree with chocolate/lolly fundraisers when we are always harping on about healthy eating, would seem quite hypocritical!

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.