Scrip Gift Cards/Fund Raiser

[leadfootlevi]

DS's school has a Scrip program where you can buy gift cards to a number of places (Walmart, Target, local grocery store, gas stations, restaurants, Disney, etc.) and, depending on which cards you buy you get a certain % back that can be put towards tuition (private school). Walmart and Target only earn 2%, but the local grocery store and gas stations are 4%. Disney is 2%. Some of the restaurants are up to 30% and restaurant.com is 50%! Does anyone have experience with this type of program? What are the cons?

If I can talk the in-laws into buying gift certificates for their many trips to Walmart and Applebees, it'll probably pay for DS's tuition for a year! Of course, they're fuddy-duddies so they probably won't, but I might be able to recruit some other family members...

 

[allison443]

My dd's school (also a private school) had this program. They eliminated almost all other fundraisers and every family was required to buy $3000 worth of scrip. The profit went to the school. Only after you reached your $3000, then any extra you bought, the profit would be a credit towards tuition.

I have heard of other schools that split the profits between the school and the student's tution account. So it would depend on how your school is set up.

I liked the program because I only spent money that I was going to spend anyway on groceries, gas, home depot, etc. and didn't have to buy expensive wrapping paper, etc.

Our school had a LOT of cards kept "on hand" in the office. All grocery stores, gas stations, home depot/lowes, movies, macys, sears, jcpenney, fast food places, dunkin donuts, barnes and noble, chilis/applebees/tgif etc. were in stock. They also had extended hours so you could purchase scrip in the evenings up to 8:00 (lots of evening activities going on at the school). Occasionally they would run out of certain gift cards but they tried to keep them in stock. We could order cards for other stores that weren't in stock, and they were delivered every friday.

From what I understand the program was successful at our school.

 

[zarvgirl]

I was fundraising for a Habitat Build trip to South America with a church group, we did this as a fundraiser, my thoughts:

--you need regular clients to make it work. That buy each week or every second week.
--it's mostly about getting people into the idea of doing it all the time.
--if you know anyone that travels for work, and needs to use a lot of gas, that worked well. We had several truckers that would buy all their gas cards with us.
--Ultimately our group had limited success with this. We have a large congregation for this area and still had a hard time getting people use to doing this. A much smaller church that we know of has had real success with this. So it could go either way.

Good luck. The potential is worth the effort.

 

[scootch]

Our school does it... actually I am the coordinator. We let the families have 1/2 of what they make off the next years tuition. I have sold over a quarter of a million dollars worth of cards in 1/2 a year and only have 30-35 families even taking advantage of it. Some cards you can get perks better yourself, such as BP(my BP credit card gives me 5% back) Some of the retailers like Bath and Body are EXTREMELY generous with % up near 18%. We have always saved several hundred dollars off our tuition and we are a very frugal family, eating out not very often and not spending much on clothes. The big key is to get in the habit of buying it. Trying to convince people to do this. My sister in law spends $400 a month at a particular grocery store, so trying to convince her to buy off the school instead of writing a check. I just buy ahead things i know I am going to need.

 

[mamaLori05]

my dd's school does that (public), and the % goes towards technology in the classrooms. They have been very successful with the program, in fact they originally had a technology plan they thought was going to take 4 years to complete, and were able to complete it in just one year with the help of the scrip cards! It's easy to do really. They are regular gift cards, all you have to do is order them up and then you can use them wherever you shop. Kohl's I know is a hot seller by us because you can use the Kohl's one to pay off your kohl's charge. That way you still get the special discounts they offer for using your card, and you are helping out your school (or in your case your tuition) at the same time. If you buy them for all of the places you shop, you will probably be surprised at how quickly it adds up!

 

[leadfootlevi]

The form has 3 options for applying your Scrip rewards -
1) donate it all to the scholarship fund
2) donate 1/2 to the scholarship fund and 1/2 to a particular child's tuition
3) use 100% of it on a particular child's tuition

The school doesn't take any of the proceeds.

Good to know about Kohl's. For places that offer less % than our CC's, I won't be using Scrip. Right now they only take payment via check but are trying to get Paypal. That would be awesome - cashback on CC to paypal plus % back towards tuition!

 

[AmandaNied]

We do scrip at our school- They make a few hundred a week, with very few families participating. It has been in place for a few years, but people have a hard time embracing it.

I usually buy once a week-Gas, Groceries and a Disney Gift card, as we are saving for our trip. I also get gift cards for ALL my b-day gifts for family/friends, and for Christmas as well