Spend what you need to to ensure that your lottery matches are warmly welcomed. Snacks, name tags, that kind of thing.

As frustrating as they can sometimes be for the volunteers, the community events - ice cream social, pumpkin patch, spring fair. Make them free if you can. Get families to the school and interacting with each other.

For high school, college prep

Our PTO a few years ago funded a refresh of the teachers lounge including a new microwave, deep clean of the fridge/freezer, furniture from a 2nd hand store along with furniture/accessory dontations and fresh paint and area rugs. Also added nice touches to the teacher bathroom.

Childcare during PTA meetings.

Figure out what the teachers most want and buy it. Don't waste your money on cutesy stuff. Go to Costco and buy as much printer paper as you can.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you, everyone! Keep 'em coming!

Our school uses some of the PTA funds to allow for all kids to participate in after school enrichment activities (dance, soccer, etc), regardless of ability to pay.

Thank you, everyone! Keep 'em coming!

A Costco membership, if you think you'll use it. They have amazing prices on printer paper and ink.

The fee for a one-day volunteering event with Americorps or Cityyear or whatever it is. They did a big cleanup and painted some walls. The kids were loving it!

Insurance and bonding. Embezzlement happens-- several DC PTOs have experienced it in the last 10 years or so.

The insurance is to protect your organization and your volunteers from liability. If you are serving food and if you are doing anything even slightly dangerous (bouncy house!) then you need it. It only takes one nutter with an unfounded lawsuit to make life miserable for everyone and run up legal bills.

Scholastic Book Fair was popular and brings in money. The PTA donated enough that each kid could choose a book to take home, but then people bought more and the school gets a cut.

Ours did high intensity tutoring that seemed to get great results.

But honestly, the thing I thought was best was when there was a fire in an apartment building in our catchment. Everyone was okay, but three families from our school lost everything. The PTO gave them a bunch of gift cards to grocery stores and Target and stuff.

Correcting the drainage on the playground with mulch and some grading. We have to pay for the mulch twice a year, but it's well worth it to eliminate the mud.

Getting set up as a 501(c)(3) was well worth the cost. If you don't have that done, people here can help you.

Having a really nice website for the school, including pro photography. If you can get a photographer to do teacher and admin headshots plus nice photos of the building and cute kids, that will really pay off. It's not that expensive and totally worth it.

What are some examples of programs/equipment that your PTO/PTA has funded over the past four years that have had the highest ROI?