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Beware so-called ‘school fundraisers’

Posted Monday, August 25, 2008

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When school starts back up and the sports season is in full swing, community members are used to seeing school posters with pictures of area school teams and game schedules, or they know at football games cheerleaders will be handing out free T-shirts, plastic cups, and little footballs all in school colors.

Many local businesses are quick to buy advertisements that will go on these promotional items. In doing so they believe that they are donating to local schools, but what the businesses don’t know is that these posters and handouts often are not sponsored by school districts at all.

“Businesses are great about supporting the kids with donations; however, when they buy an advertisement for these items, they are not really supporting the schools,” Angleton ISD Assistant Superintendent Dr. Pat Montgomery said.

Angleton ISD is one school district that has been affected by this less than reputable sales technique.

“Vendors will give businesses the impression that the money goes to us, but we have no hand in the fundraiser,” Angleton ISD Director of Athletics Finis Vanover added.

The vendors, who are often from out-of-state, go to local businesses and ask them if they would like to support their local schools by buying an ad. Many places buy these ads with the assumption that their money makes it to the schools. Later people selling ads for actual school sponsored fundraisers like the Angleton football programs go by these businesses, and they are told by the owners or proprietors that they won’t donate because they have already done so.

“We’ve had businesses upset with us about hitting them up for several fundraisers,” Montgomery said. “They tell us, ‘We’ve already donated to you,’ and we have no idea what they are talking about. What the vendors are doing is actually hurting the district because business only have so much money that they can donate.”

Most of the time, school districts do not see any proceeds at all, but in order to back up what they are saying to the businesses, sometimes the vendors send a very small fraction of the proceeds to the districts.

“These vendors can raise over $5,000 from one printing of posters by selling ads for $150,” Montgomery said. “They might send us $50 of the total profits so that they can indeed say that proceeds go to the schools.”

Businesses looking to donate to schools need to make sure their money is actually going where they think it is. When in doubt, Montgomery says question the vendor.

“Ask to see an official letter about the fundraiser,” she said. “My suggestion to Angleton businesses is to look for school letterhead and actual signatures from Superintendent Dr. Heath Burns, campus principals or me. Then make sure your check is made out to Angleton Independent School District.”

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