Fundraising
Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 9:10 am
The phenomenon of school fundraising continues to be a steaming pile of BS. The goal of such efforts is to transfer money from point A to account B, where A ordinarily flows from parents and immediate family members. Maximizing the sources of A relieves the financial burden on family members, in exchange for increasing their time burden. To make the expenditure of time worthwhile, a wide net needs to be cast and a vehicle for acquiring the money needs to be provided that does not cost more than it is worth in the time expended. This usually involves selling a product of some kind. Optimally it is a product that would have to be sold by someone anyway, at an event that you would be spending your time on anyway. Concessions at a football game or track meet are an obvious example of this kind of effective fundraising that is worth the time invested.
These time investments may be made by those for whom time is very cheap, like the students or the subset of students involved in an activity, or parents who have a lot of free time on their hands. Inevitably, these parents with the luxury of free time end up in decision making roles where they choose modes of raising money that depend on parents having lots of free time to burn. Then they marvel at the lack of participation from parents who have no such free time to burn, or for whom the time expenditure would be far more expensive than simply forking over the amount of cash that would be produced. If it would be better for the parents to add a minimum wage part-time job and simply turn over all the earnings than it would be to participate in your s*** ass fundraiser, then you're doing it wrong in some way. If you choose to sell a product that 90% of the parent and peripheral attendee audience would never purchase, then you're doing it wrong. If you need parents to be professional marketers in order to make your fundraising effort to success, but you don't have an adequate number of parents who can serve as such marketers, then you're doing it wrong. Pick something that students can market themselves. But that won't happen because the only people making these choices are the ones who have a lot of useless cheap free time on their hands, who deeply resent it when other parents who don't have that luxury are not able to donate their time at the same level.
This is a universal experience we have observed for years now. The most recent manifestation prompting these reflections is that a truly dumb person has managed to guarantee that many fewer parents will participate going forward, at a time we really need the help and the fundraising. But when you s*** on people for no reason, while making completely stupid choices that anybody can see benefit only the company you're shucking merchandise for and not the group you're trying to help, you create a long-term situation where parents don't think it's worthwhile to participate. This will be puzzled over in the next three meetings, I'm sure. Why won't people come? Why won't people donate their time or purchase a $500 product that we would have made $25 on? Nobody knows.
These time investments may be made by those for whom time is very cheap, like the students or the subset of students involved in an activity, or parents who have a lot of free time on their hands. Inevitably, these parents with the luxury of free time end up in decision making roles where they choose modes of raising money that depend on parents having lots of free time to burn. Then they marvel at the lack of participation from parents who have no such free time to burn, or for whom the time expenditure would be far more expensive than simply forking over the amount of cash that would be produced. If it would be better for the parents to add a minimum wage part-time job and simply turn over all the earnings than it would be to participate in your s*** ass fundraiser, then you're doing it wrong in some way. If you choose to sell a product that 90% of the parent and peripheral attendee audience would never purchase, then you're doing it wrong. If you need parents to be professional marketers in order to make your fundraising effort to success, but you don't have an adequate number of parents who can serve as such marketers, then you're doing it wrong. Pick something that students can market themselves. But that won't happen because the only people making these choices are the ones who have a lot of useless cheap free time on their hands, who deeply resent it when other parents who don't have that luxury are not able to donate their time at the same level.
This is a universal experience we have observed for years now. The most recent manifestation prompting these reflections is that a truly dumb person has managed to guarantee that many fewer parents will participate going forward, at a time we really need the help and the fundraising. But when you s*** on people for no reason, while making completely stupid choices that anybody can see benefit only the company you're shucking merchandise for and not the group you're trying to help, you create a long-term situation where parents don't think it's worthwhile to participate. This will be puzzled over in the next three meetings, I'm sure. Why won't people come? Why won't people donate their time or purchase a $500 product that we would have made $25 on? Nobody knows.