Fundraising Survey Results!
An Update from Jennifer Friesen, PFG Chair:
Thank you so much to the 58 families who filled out the fundraising survey!! Anyone can view the results here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1exXrIG589BYTUZj7BXIuPRa5fyVy0KzkJkKmY_rbyRs/viewanalytics To view some of the comments that are obstructed, just hover over them and the full comment will appear.
In what has become a rather long blog post, I’d like to address a couple of things that came up in the survey:
Lunch Lady - this isn’t actually a school fundraiser, but a service that the school offers. Comments related to school lunches have been forwarded to Mr. Borkowski, but if you have any ideas or would like to volunteer to help out with that program, we encourage you to get in touch with him directly.
For those of you who are looking to contribute with a tax-receiptable donation, please keep a look-out for opportunities to donate through CHIMP (we use it for the Fitness-A-Thon and for the Gala).
Tracking donations through CHIMP - CHIMP is a great way for friends and family members to make a donation and receive a tax receipt right away. It also gives us the option of accepting donations from people outside the Lower Mainland, and is a great way to ask family members who live far away to help support your children and their school.
If you would like to keep track of who donated for your child, please remind the donors to mention your child’s name in the notes when they make the donation. Also, we cannot track anyone who makes donations anonymously, so please encourage your family members to make donations in their own name. Any questions about CHIMP donations should be directed to fundraising@cloverdalecatholicschool.ca
Event tickets cost - This year tickets to the Gala were $50. Catering cost about $35 per head, with all the additional costs, we made a profit of about $10 per ticket (roughly estimated). This added up to $3000 profit from the tickets, we made just over $24,000 at the event, so ticket sales accounted for 1/8 of our revenue.
One way to reduce costs at the Gala would be to do the food ourselves. We used to do this until the family who did the dinner (trained chefs) left the school, since then we have had to rely on catering. If anyone has this type of training and is interested in doing the food for our next fundraising gala, please get in touch!
We try to offer a variety of ways to donate at the Gala - it is true that we often get similar donations to previous years. In order to get different types of donations, we need more people to help with finding auction items!! If you are interested in helping out, please email us at fundraising@cloverdalecatholicschool.ca
Tree chipping - if you like to keep your tree up until Epiphany, you are in luck! We generally run two tree chipping days and one of them is always after Epiphany. Lady Mary approves.
This survey certainly showed that parents want to hang out with their kids, and that is great!! We are looking for more all-ages fundraising opportunities for next year. Several people have mentioned the idea of a fun fair or something similar; however, at the moment we do not have enough PFG members to run a large event like that. If this is something that you are interested in seeing at CCS and if you are willing to commit to helping to organize that type of event, please email us at fundraising@cloverdalecatholicschool.ca
Communication with the Preschool - because Wee Saints is run by the parish and not the school, we do not have access to contact information for preschool parents until the children have been accepted into CCS. That is the reason for spotty/irregular communication with the preschool parents and is something we are working on.
#BurntOut and Thank Yous: As you can see from a couple of comments, some of our volunteers have been working very hard for a long time, and we are doing the best we can with limited volunteer resources. That is why the “thank yous” from so many people in the comments mean so much to us. It’s nice to know that our efforts are appreciated. It is a privilege to be able to serve this community. It’s like parenthood: sometimes hard, but definitely worth it.
Finally, I wanted to address something very important: the perceived expectation to donate. It is a reality that we need to raise extra money for the school, so we do ask families to go over and above the school tuition, as it simply does not meet all of our needs, especially for “extra” things like upgrades playground equipment. As a fundraising committee, we work hard to put on fundraisers that are either enjoyable for you to attend or useful for your family to take part in, so that you are spending your time doing something you enjoy or spending your hard-earned money on something that you will actually use.
That said, please know that the school administration, Parish Education Committee, and Parent Fundraising Group fully recognize that all families are able to give at different levels. That decision is entirely up to you and we have no expectation for every family to participate in every fundraiser. We are grateful for every donation we receive and every volunteer that helps out. We need all of you - families that donate time and families that donate treasure. No one is keeping track of who gives what. (Frankly, that would be way too much work).
Again, thank you to all the parents who filled out the survey. We will be taking all of this into account as we plan for the upcoming year. Have a great summer!
Jennifer Friesen
PFG Chair