Finance For Us

School fundraising is important. We all know that. Few school projects can take flight without the critically funding provided by the various fundraising initiatives launched by school PTAs or school PTOs. There are many types of fundraising initiatives and can be differentiated between product and non-product fundraisers. This article focuses on product sale fundraisers.

The reason why I feel an article like this is so critical is that turnover is so high in PTAs. With membership turning over almost entirely every year, mistakes and the lessons learned are rarely passed along. In order to help make all our school fundraisers more successful and launch all our necessary projects, I hope in creating this list that schools will better achieve their goals. So enough blabbering, here is the top ten list on the mistakes you ought to avoid and be successful from knowing it.

1) Promotion or the lack thereof
School fundraisers that are well planned and researched often fall short in promotion. Marketing is critical for all successful businesses and is preached to all those in the business community. Making something is worthless if no one knows what you are doing. The message here is you definitely have to make a plan to promote your school fundraiser. Choose not to and you may as well not run one at all. A few ideas are letters sent home to parents or an email blast.

2) No Goal
Choosing a goal, a realistic one, is important. School fundraising PTA’s often set goals that are far too unrealistic, often on the high side. If you need to raise $X, you need to get an idea of how much you need to sell. A simple formula is X = Profit Margin x Sales. If you have a profit margin of 40% and need to raise $10,000, you will need to have your community pay $25,000 to you, assuming there are no other fixed costs. Putting it this way may will make for more realistic goals, goal that are achievable.

Secured personal loans have a history that dates back to centuries before the advent of modern banks and financial institutions. Even in the ancient times, borrowers were able to draw funds only when the lender was given rights to certain assets. Though a vast change is visible in the lending policy today, the popularity of secured personal loans sees no decline. Though homeowners do have the option to take unsecured personal loans, a majority of the group prefers to have loans the secured way.

Mere apprehension of losing homes through repossession fails to motivate borrowers to change loyalties. At least borrowers who have been regular in credit transactions or had not more than one or two incidences of bad credit will not put their weight for loans without collateral. Loans without collateral or unsecured personal loans do not claim a direct charge on the borrower’s home, but compensate the risk with a very high rate of interest and equally strict terms. Therefore, while the safety of home is ensured, the cost of loan rockets up.

It is obvious that the cost of secured personal loan is lesser because of the lower interest rates and less strict terms. When the loan comes over for repayment, secured personal loans will be easier to repay because of lower cost involved.

The intention of loan providers who try to influence the decision of borrowers to take secured personal loans is often viewed disapprovingly. Lenders prefer secured personal loans because of the lower degree of risk placed by them. People interpret this as the lenders eye on their home. Lenders are in no way interested in repossessing house or any other asset kept as collateral. Since, repossession, maintenance and liquidation put a huge cost on the lender, he would better allow the borrower to himself repay the loan provided. Only in the most extreme of cases when the loan appears to become a bad debt, lenders undertake to repossess collateral.

Consequently, the fears regarding secured personal loans are misplaced.