I’m on the PTA of an Evanston elementary school and have worked on fundraising for the last year. While I agree with the concept of the OneFund, the way it’s run makes it almost impossible to fundraise for. We cannot “make families feel badly” about not giving or even tell them what their money will be used for (thus why they should give…
I’m on the PTA of an Evanston elementary school and have worked on fundraising for the last year. While I agree with the concept of the OneFund, the way it’s run makes it almost impossible to fundraise for. We cannot “make families feel badly” about not giving or even tell them what their money will be used for (thus why they should give more). Almost all of my fundraising tips and tricks were shut down. We aren’t even allowed to ask families what they’d like the school’s portion of PTA money to be spent on because those activities are all pre-set for equity reasons. It’s been a very unnecessarily frustrating experience. So much so that I’m stepping down this spring.
When families give to a school or other organization, they feel more invested in that organization and more connected to each other. The poorly thought-out plan for the One Fund strips us of the joy and community that really can come from fundraising.
Hillary I'm sorry hear that you were discouraged from continuing in your role at your school's PTA. As someone who has served on an elementary PTA for two years I know that volunteers are increasingly hard to come by these days.
I will say that we were initially confused by some of the restrictions seemingly imposed by the fund. Our budget operated on a model that was a better suited to old way of fundraising and we were frustrated that expenses for fundraising couldn't be treated as pass through income.
I actually started attending PTA Equity Project Board to try and learn more about how it all actually worked and to see if I could help make it better. What I found was that a lot of the limitations around fundraising were not coming from the structure of the fund but were arbitrary limits proposed in a good faith effort to move away from the kinds of gatekeeping, gala style fundraisers that are rampant in nonprofits and larger charities in favor of a more grassroots style of fund raising.
We asked for clarification with our concerns about fundraiser expenses and found that those on the council were flexible in finding a way to make it work for all PTAs. I think that that level of adaptability is essential if the fund it going to work going forward.
As for letting community members decide how monies are allocated, we are able to keep our budget flexible enough to adapt to needs that arise during the school year. This can't cover every conceivable expense but the other members of my PTA manage to do a lot of great things for our school teachers, administrators, students & family members with what we have.
I feel that being contributors to One Fund means that we can serve our school while trying our best to fundraise at least as much as we spend so that we are contributing across our larger community, the community that will be merged anyway once our kids hit high school.
I’m on the PTA of an Evanston elementary school and have worked on fundraising for the last year. While I agree with the concept of the OneFund, the way it’s run makes it almost impossible to fundraise for. We cannot “make families feel badly” about not giving or even tell them what their money will be used for (thus why they should give more). Almost all of my fundraising tips and tricks were shut down. We aren’t even allowed to ask families what they’d like the school’s portion of PTA money to be spent on because those activities are all pre-set for equity reasons. It’s been a very unnecessarily frustrating experience. So much so that I’m stepping down this spring.
When families give to a school or other organization, they feel more invested in that organization and more connected to each other. The poorly thought-out plan for the One Fund strips us of the joy and community that really can come from fundraising.
Hillary I'm sorry hear that you were discouraged from continuing in your role at your school's PTA. As someone who has served on an elementary PTA for two years I know that volunteers are increasingly hard to come by these days.
I will say that we were initially confused by some of the restrictions seemingly imposed by the fund. Our budget operated on a model that was a better suited to old way of fundraising and we were frustrated that expenses for fundraising couldn't be treated as pass through income.
I actually started attending PTA Equity Project Board to try and learn more about how it all actually worked and to see if I could help make it better. What I found was that a lot of the limitations around fundraising were not coming from the structure of the fund but were arbitrary limits proposed in a good faith effort to move away from the kinds of gatekeeping, gala style fundraisers that are rampant in nonprofits and larger charities in favor of a more grassroots style of fund raising.
We asked for clarification with our concerns about fundraiser expenses and found that those on the council were flexible in finding a way to make it work for all PTAs. I think that that level of adaptability is essential if the fund it going to work going forward.
As for letting community members decide how monies are allocated, we are able to keep our budget flexible enough to adapt to needs that arise during the school year. This can't cover every conceivable expense but the other members of my PTA manage to do a lot of great things for our school teachers, administrators, students & family members with what we have.
I feel that being contributors to One Fund means that we can serve our school while trying our best to fundraise at least as much as we spend so that we are contributing across our larger community, the community that will be merged anyway once our kids hit high school.
I wish I could prioritize this comment somehow. Thank you for chiming in!