Susan Kingsbury

I'm not anti-auction. True, I'm not crazy about the "consumeristic" aspect, but also not hypocritical enough to claim that as my reason for leaning away from the auction; if it does happen, I will surely attend and I'll be in "buy more stuff" mode. Bring on the bargains!

Reasons I support multiple small events:
1. Provides opportunities for busy parents to be involved in discrete, achievable tasks with smaller time commitments
2. Encourages multiple smaller donations
3. Supports local businesses and builds community
4. Greater potential for student involvement

My concerns with the auction:
1. Who is going to step up to own the auction? I'd guess at least 2 or 3 people need to take on very time-intensive roles. Doesn't seem like the type of thing well served by many hands making light work.
2. To be successful, will likely require parents to dig deep and pay for big ticket items. Current economy might not support this outcome.
3. Doesn't support local businesses to same extent. (i.e. big ticket items aren't coming from CC community)
4. Shouldn't we be well on our way with planning efforts already? Seem like we're setting ourselves up for a less than stellar event…

Michelle

Cambria hit it on the head: "there's a skeletal crew of devoted parents". WHAT'S UP WITH THIS?! Apologies in advance for my rant, but I think this issue needs to be addressed head on without mincing words.

I, too, have spoken with numerous public school parents in and outside of Graham Hill trying to figure out what it is about our school community that makes our PTA involvement so spartan. I'm perplexed.

I empathize with single parents, language barriers, two jobs, swing shifts, etc. There are so many people though who don't have these issues and do little if anything. I know that there are many who do volunteer in class, chaperon field trips and contribute money and I've a hunch that many of our older students' parents burned out when there wasn't a functioning principal for 8 years, and then more burned out fighting closure. That said, there are still plenty of people with lots of great ideas about how things should be who aren't stepping up. If we are going to continue to be a "school of distinction" then this has got to change. We have got to change the culture of expectations within our school community and involve many, many more people than are currently (trying to) carry the load. If more people don't start making more of a commitment then our school can just not be what we all want for it to be for our children.

We all know that "Many hands make light work". "It takes a village", etc., etc. As a third year member of the Graham HIll community, I am often asked how we're liking G.H by others outside of the school and my response is quite positive with the caveat always being how weak our PTA is. I do not believe that this is a leadership issue. This is a community issue and we alone can change it.

WHO WILL LEAD THE AUCTION EFFORT?

WHO WILL LEAD THE ANNUAL FUND DRIVE?

WHO WILL LEAD OTHER VALUABLE FUNDRAISING EFFORTS?
A catered dinner?
A 'Pearl Jango- like' Night out?
A walk a-thon?
Other ideas?

WHO WILL WRITE A BIG CHECK?

Over and out,

Maura Whalen

I will not argue that auctions can make big money and we need some big money. I am definitely not trying to say that a children's art sale and movie matinee is going to raise $18k. What I am saying is this:

NO ONE has stepped up to lead the auction effort.
The country is in an economic crisis(there are parents in my son's class that are on the verge of losing their business).
This downturn is not only affecting the families in our community that were already struggling, but also middle class families that have donated in the past.
The most common thing I have heard from the many parents I have talked with is "Auctions are A LOT of work" followed by "Can I just write a check?".

There are limits to what money we can get from our school community. We need to involve the outside community—but who is that exactly? Parents inviting their wealthy friends i.e. "patrons"? Does that refer to the businesses donating their goods? Are there more effective ways of reaching these two groups? What about a catered dinner in a private home or restaurant? a golf tournament? a chartered boat trip? There are more creative and less grueling ways to achieve our goals than an auction.

Cambria Cox (room 201 parent)

I want to acknowledge Scott and Cambria’s dedication and creativity. But, I do not think the “series of smaller events” will generate the amount needed to close the $18,000 fundraising gap. My personal opinion (obviously not shared by all) is that those are “feel good” events unlikely to raise significant funds (my expectation is we’d get less than half of what we need). There is a reason why most schools that raise money do so through an auction and annual fund: these are the tried and true methods. As to the Pearl Django suggestion, I’m all for it, if the band will play.

I concede that: (1) doing the auction would require at least 2 co-chairs who are willing and able to devote significant time to making it happen; and (2) it is easy to advocate for the auction when I lack the time to be one of the co-chairs. If no one steps up, well, that effectively makes the decision for us.

Looking long-term…..

As a PTA, we committed this year to paying for certain items we previously did not fund. If we fail in our fundraising efforts, we will enter next year with little or no reserve. At that point, we will need to either: (1) tell the teachers the PTA will no longer fund the programs; or (2) agree to fund them with no track record of having done the things needed to pay for them (i.e., Yikes! our backs will really be to the wall). Not an appealing choice. Looked at this way, the auction this year (if we do it) is our opportunity to get some experience with it, but without quite the same degree of pressure than if we wait until next year.

Mike Rosenberger

Let me just say, as someone on the front lines of fundraising, even the richest folks in Seattle are not feeling rich and the ripples of this economic downturn will directly impact an effort like a school auction. Most have seen their portfolios shrink and they are not feeling comfortable buying luxury items for over their estimated value.

Our luncheon last week did not raise as much money from individuals as we have in years past and people who had written $1000 checks the years before, were donating $250 this year.

I strongly encourage your committee to do something more creative than an auction. For the bigger donors, a catered dinner in someone's home is the prefect and most efficient ways to get their checks. For the majority of your neighbors, a raffle is a much more accessible way to make a contribution in these particular economic times.

I like Cambria's idea of a Columbia City shopping day. The most seductive part of the idea is the chaperoned movie, in which any parent is welcome to drop their kids off and do their holiday shopping locally. I could see myself working on something like that.

I also like the idea of a focused, strategic annual fund drive, in which we work together to personalize the experience. We call people or visit them, we invite them to participate, and we acknowledge their generosity, regardless of what level they're willing to give.

The year of the closures fight, I really enjoyed our Pearl Django dance party. It was a meaningful way to connect with parents. The music was tremendous. And we pulled from beyond the immediate school community. I could see working on something similar this year — maybe at the Columbia City Theater.

I think an auction is a good idea, but maybe as a lesser element of an evening of music, dance, food and drink. Maybe we could parlay that experience to build it into something bigger next year.

But basically, I encourage us to think of every PTA event as an opportunity to pitch in. It could be something as simple as $2 raffle tickets, with half the pot going to the winner. It could be T-shirt sales. It could be a $5 spaghetti feed, with free meal tickets to anyone in the free lunch program. If we present these opportunities with a positive, unapologetic tone, I think we're much more likely to meet our goal of full family participation.

Since last Monday's meeting, I've spoken to a couple of people who have reiterated the argument that the monetary (and community) return from an auction may not match the effort expended. Both Scott Ringgold and Cambria Cox have independently presented similar ideas to me for smaller-scale events.

Scott has suggested approaching the Columbia City Cinema about showing a family-friendly matinee with a portion of the proceeds to GH. He also suggested that a benefit concert (a la the Pearl Django show of a few years ago) would be a good event.

Cambria has an idea to do a holiday shopping benefit with some of the stores and restaurants in Columbia City (Retroactive Kids, La Medusa, the Cinema, etc.) in addition to a child artwork focused auction (perhaps held at the C-City Gallery?). These might be two distinct events with the auction held in the spring. The holiday benefit could also involve a matinee at the Cinema as well as gift-wrapping service. Cambria expressed that she would be willing to take the lead on planning events of this type.

I hate to keep circling back around with this because I feel there is an urgency to start work on whatever event we will hold, but (with a couple of exceptions) I have not sensed much enthusiasm for a full-blown auction. It will take determined leadership to pull off this type of event and we don't have that at this point.

We currently have a fundraising gap of $18,000 in the 2008-09 PTA budget. This gap is the impetus behind the auction. In analyzing how other schools in the city are raising money, it seems that those schools which are raising more than GH all rely heavily on an auction. It seems as though an auction is the most likely way to raise this sort of figure in a single event. However, maybe it makes sense for us to chip away at this goal with two or three smaller-scale events. Maybe one of these smaller events could mature into something that would generate more funding in the years ahead.

Another prong in our strategy could be to devote more resources to the Annual Fund drive and grantwriting efforts. A suggestion has been made to produce more polished Annual Fund literature in a push to broaden the audience that might reach. I feel that the expense that we would incur for printing could be easily offset by the gains in giving.

What are your thoughts on what the mix of fundraising efforts should be?

It is assumed that the PTA will continue to fund all of the programs that we have paid for in the past. These amounted to nearly $15,000 for the past year. So, if we choose to go ahead with everything, we'll be looking at spending just under $70,000 in the coming school year.

The difficulty comes in that we need to make commitment to these new programs in the next month or so (i.e. before we have the money in hand to fully fund them).

In the current year, the PTA has raised roughly $25,000. The amount of fundraising has been increasing slowly throughout the past several years. We have around $35,000 in the bank.

We've begun to identify several ways in which we might increase fundraising, such as:

• integrating fundraising into existing events
• creating new fundraising events (auctions, benefit concerts, etc.)
• increasing promotion and emphasis on the Annual Fund
• pursuing grants
• doing more sales
• enhanced community outreach efforts (to local businesses and community members)
• etc.

Of these, I believe that grants have the potential to provide the biggest monetary impact. However, the catch is that there is usually a relatively long lead time between applying for a grant and receiving funds. We are now only in the exploratory phase of identifying grants to which we may apply. There is also a learning curve to the application process that we have to surmount. Therefore, I don't feel confident that we can project to have any grant dollars in the budget for the coming year. Obviously, I'm hopeful that we will, but I don't think that we can plan on it at this point.

That leaves the prospect of almost tripling our fundraising goals using basically the same methods that we have used in the past. Our cash reserves provide some cushion, but it would be a shame to deplete that hard-earned savings. Ideally, I'd like to be in a position that we are funding one year ahead, i.e. we have enough money in the bank at the end of each school year to fund all or our expenses for the subsequent year.

Do you feel confident in committing to raising $70,000 next year?

Should we (as the fundraising team) recommend that the PTA consider sticking to a smaller budget, either by denying funding for one or more of the new programs or cutting some existing programs?

Should we just “go for it” and rely on our savings if we fall short?

Thanks so much for your valuable input. I have to admit that one of the challenges I face as a person who has come to the school since the closure fiasco occurred is that I may have a blind spot when considering how that experience shaped the attitudes of many of the community members who lived and fought through it.

We had a good discussion at last night's kick-off meeting and I feel like we're beginning to get the ball rolling on a lot of exciting opportunities. I'll continue to work to keep everyone in the loop as this effort continues to evolve.

Thanks,
Keith

I'm going to post some impressions that I'm sure will stir up some emotions. I feel strongly about this, I'm dashing it off, and I'm broadcasting — three ingredients for email disaster, so I hope none of it comes across as terse. Maybe this message will hit people's email boxes in time to build interest in Keith's Tuesday fundraising meeting, and hopefully it'll get some discussion going here.

I'm concerned about a general hesitancy in the PTA when it comes to fundraising at Graham Hill.

I think I understand the basis — after all, our school has families from all walks of life. The Graham Hill community has been through a bruising fight to accurately define ourselves in the public eye. We're sensitive to differences within the school. The funny thing is — after beating back school closure and winning that fight, we never really evaluated about lessons learned. I worry that we've settled on assumptions about unity that are somewhat apologetic and self-punishing.

Graham Hill succeeds on many levels. One of its successes is that it draws families who have the skills, the financial means, the time, the stability, or the connections to help make bold things happen. Another success is that it draws from families who face great challenges to surmount language barriers, to transcend cultures, to overcome poverty, or to break cycles of violence. The result is a fine-grained mix of children and parents with a depth of experience to share.

But we also have a range of responsibilities, based on what we can offer. In the name of school unity, it's my sense that the PTA has deliberately limited itself. For instance, we've canceled fundraisers and de-emphasized cash donations because we're concerned that it might alienate families unable to write a check.

I think we should integrate fundraising into everything the PTA does. There shouldn't be any clear distinctions between organizing events, building community, having fun, and fundraising.

We should be deliberate and forthright about asking people for money, clear about what we'll do with the funds, and expressly thankful when people are generous with their cash.

It doesn't hurt to ask people directly, politely, and personally to help pay for their children's education. After all, our parent community are all adults — we're pretty good at recognizing our financial limits and to handle our own pursestrings. If I were to ask someone for too much money, I expect they'd be able to tell me as much and adjust my expectations. As a gracious fundraiser, I would make it clear that a smaller donation can be just as meaningful.

Sure, we have to be sensitive to one another. But by not asking people directly and personally to take part, I think we miss a great opportunity to invest parents in our parent organization and in the great things that we can achieve as a school community.

So for a start, I'd like to put another plug in for Keith's brilliant tax rebate stimulus challenge from a little while back. Take a look, and please pledge to it.

All that said, I am interested in taking part. Tuesday night I'm tied up in a public meeting for work. Thanks, Keith, for making your list of ideas so available. I'm looking forward to reading what ideas this group raises.

S.

This interesting report from the Seattle Council PTSA shows total school funding for all schools in the district for the 2005-2006 school year. The "Self-help" column can be used to evaluate PTA funding (there are a couple of other items in that bucket, which are explained at the bottom, but I don't believe they're very significant overall).

You can see that the total amount of "Self-help" funding for all elementary schools was over $3.6 million, for an average of over $56,000 per school. When you take a closer look at the numbers you can see that there is a huge discrepancy among fundraising among the schools — a couple of schools brought in over $250,000 while a few others raised less than $5,000. The median amount raised by elementary schools was around $30,000.

I don't expect Graham Hill to ever "catch up" with some of these other schools simply due to demographics, but there's definitely room to grow our fundraising efforts.

Fundraising events:

1. Auction (live or silent) - this is a major fundraiser for many schools. Parents solicit businesses to donate items which are then auctioned, generally at some sort of banquet-type function. I'm pretty ambivalent about this approach, especially given the wide disparity in incomes within our community — my feeling is that a large portion of the school community may feel excluded. For an expanded discussion of both sides of this issue, see this post on the Save Seattle Schools blog.
2. Art and/or Experience Auction - auctioning student artwork and things like hosted dinners, outings, etc.
3. Carnival
4. Walk-a-thon (or Anything-a-thon)
5. Holiday Bazaar / Craft Fair
6. Book Fair (w/ Barnes & Noble or another bookstore) - Barnes & Noble agrees to donate a percentage of sales for a specific day to the school.
7. Family Bingo Night
8. Dine Out Night - local restaurants donate some percentage of their proceeds on a given day to the school
9. Benefit concert
10. Bunko/Poker Nights - an admission fee is charged ($20-30) a small portion of which is used to offset the cost of refreshments supplied by the host/hostess

Fundraising sales:

1. Giftwrap sales
2. Plant sales
3. Holiday Wreathes / Trees
4. Coffee
5. Rummage Sales

My preference is for fundraisers that can help solicit funds from outside the school community. In light of that, things that I think might be a good fit for GH would be a Dine Out for GH night (maybe Pizzuto's, Tuttabella, Jones BBQ, Geraldine's, Lotties, La Medusa, El Sombrero, Kawali Grill, Roy's, Kallaloo, etc. would participate) or a benefit concert (anyone have contacts with any local bands?)

Another half-baked idea that I had while not sleeping last night: an outdoor movie series. I'm envisioning something modeled on the Fremont Outdoor Cinema. We could earn money through charging a small admission fee as well as selling refreshments. We could do it on the school playground. It's definitely a half-baked idea in that I know nothing about getting a projector, movies (and exhibit fees), a screen, etc. I also don't know what the rules and restrictions might be for having it on school property. If it can't be done at the school, another potential site might be the Seward Park amphitheatre. Obviously there are some questions to answer, but I don't know of anything else like it happening in the south end and it could be a great way to connect with our community.

Any other ideas?

I'm curious if you aware that eScrip also offers contributions for online shopping through a wide array of stores? I don't believe that is something that has been publicized. Do you think you might take advantage of something like that if it were available?