You'd have to ask them. Often people choose to go through a company as it's easy and less work for them. Reach out to the band director and ask if you can just donate directly.

Look up who the vendor processing payments is and go to their site. There’s a walk a thon company called Boosterthon that takes I think 49%. We did it once because the parents figured even if we only got half it was more than we’d get otherwise. But they also prohibited any fundraising a month before and after so you also couldn’t just donate outside the system.

Without knowing who is actually organizing it nobody can answer your questions.

Our child’s middle school band class is holding a fundraiser so that students can help pay for a trip to kings dominion in the spring. It’s call “play a Thon”and u obtain donations from friends and family thru QR code and social media. Are these fundraisers an effective way to help the students or is there a middle man that takes most of the donations? This is our first child in band class so wanted to ask the experts at dcum for some advice.