Asking for a charity donation for school raffle

[T0R1]

I'm asking local businesses for a charity donation for a raffle being held at a town event this month. Raising funds for the local primary parent council. I had great success by email and on the phone with local~ish places and then popped down to the town high street and popped in to a gift shop.

She was a little shirty with me, she said she normally donates to the small groups within the village but felt that the primary school should be funded by the government/council.

I fumbled my way through a conversation and left but I was a bit shocked. I'm nearly 40 and when I was a kid there was a PTA raising funds. AIBU?

I'm a former teacher representative on a PTA and I don't think her response was unreasonable.

I just realize I didn't actually answer the question...
Whoops!

Her response isn't really unreasonable. She has groups she chooses to donate to and some she'd rather not. That's her right.

I understand you getting a bit flustered and not knowing quite how to respond to her points though!
It might help if you formulate a clear idea of ways to respond to similar statements beforehand, and having a set thing you can say you are fundraising for is always helpful in these cases.

Some examples we did over the years:

Fundraised to buy some 'buddy benches' : extra seating around a tree near to staffroom windows, so kids who wanted to sit quietly could do so with a friend and staff could keep a sneaky eye on anyone who needed it.

Paid 2 places a year to help kids who couldn't otherwise have gotten to the primary 7 residential trip.

New stage curtains as the upper primaries had been doing drama workshops with a theatre group and wanted to show off their new found talents. The old ones were about 25 years old and were horrid! We raised the money to buy fire retardant velvet then a seamstress donated her services & made the curtains

It really does help if you can say what the money will be used for.

The constant asking parents for money, on top of the school fund that we are expected to fork out each term is one of the reasons i resigned from the PFA. and the fact that i ended up doing everything, and the bitching and sniping . The school had a massive ask and we pushed oursevles, but more importantly, the parents to the limits it became embarraing. Yes we did amazingly well and raised in excess of 30k to buy a major purchase for the school but it became so mercenary that i felt it had totally lost its way.

Lots of local businesses are very generous to our PTA fundraising appeals, many larger businesses are generous too. We drafted an email - very polite, asking whether we could ask for a donation along the lines of vouchers/tickets and using lots of words like "please" or "grateful". We said what we were fundraising for (outdoor play equipment) and had a positive response on the whole. Many larger businesses have their own corporate charity so don't support other fundraising which is fair enough - but we had a LOT of success from local visitor attractions, soft plays, cafes etc. We asked any donation be sent direct to school - there are a lot of scammers out there who ask for raffle prizes, or dodgy people who say they're a charity when they're not.

On the "PTA shouldn't be needed" point - we are in Scotland so things may be different, but we are always very clear that our fundraising is for the extras. We're not paying for salaries, books or desks. We're funding things like Scottish Opera workshops for older children, authors to come in and talk to the kids on World Book Day, a new assault course thing for the playground, buses to take kids to the Science Centre and so on. We are very careful not to fund anything which should really be covered by the Council.

Some businesses really surprised me - never thought I would even get a response from one of the poshest hotels in Glasgow but they were very nice and sent a voucher for afternoon tea for two in their champagne bar - value around £50. We were delighted!