I am a fundraiser who has donor fatigue. Can I give this advice to the booster club at my child’s school:
It is true that you need to ask if you want to get a donation. But it is also true that you can ask too many times. Seriously. And it is especially true that when you use my child’s creativity/pride/desire for plastic stuff to get donations for me my patience wears thin!!! STOP ASKING!!!!
We have not yet reached Thanksgiving and I have been asked to support the following fundraising activities FOR THE SAME SCHOOL: art you can order on tchoches, book fair, cocktail party, school directory sponsors, gift wrap, and school carnival (and sponsorship). They even changed the annual Fun Run into a fundraiser–with plastic stuff as a prize for how many donations you get. That is 7 fundraisers in 3 months.
I am starting to catch on to their insidious plan–I will pay them to leave me alone.
In all seriousness, the high school where I taught (briefly) had an option of paying a bunch of money ( I can’t remember what it was) and being taken OUT of the circle for all fundraisers all year. They just divided up your money to all the clubs that had asked to do a fundraiser, and you were done. You got a little sticker for your office door that basically said, “leave me alone. I gave at the office.” It was brilliant.
Now they need to create an equivalent for schools. And we need fundraisers without plastic crap.
Not to be too gender-sterotypical, but I think it is suburban moms run amok. And they just asked me to donate a pie next week!!!
I actively despise that stupid fun run. We did that for two years and I HATE it. We also do Santafest–before Thanksgiving. I don’t do that either. I feel sort of bad because I know the school needs money but I would so rather write a check.
Anisa, I know! The no-hassle fundraiser is the only way to go. Don’t get me started on wrapping paper.