Spend Some Bucks Online, Support Your Local School

By GREG MILLER

Nov. 4, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

For parents of school-age children, the fund-raising obligations never cease. Their per capita expenditures on baked goods, car washes, magazine subscriptions and gift wrap are unsurpassed.

Now, even cyberspace isn’t safe from this onslaught. About a dozen Internet companies, including rivals Schoolcash.com and Schoolpop.com, have sprouted up over the past year that recover from Web merchants a percentage of what parents spend online and route the money to local schools.

Of course, these school-support companies keep a tidy profit for themselves. But overall, they may be presenting parents with one of the simplest and most efficient fund-raising propositions yet.

With minimal hassle, parents can help their neighborhood schools by making purchases at sites they would probably visit anyway--including Amazon.com, EToys and other giants--without paying higher prices.

The retailers, grateful for the business, send rebates ranging from 1% to 25% of the purchase amount back to the referring site, which passes the bulk of that money on to schools.

“It’s a nice concept,” said Tim Sullivan, publisher of PTO Magazine, a publication that covers parent and teachers’ organizations. “For parents who are online shoppers, I don’t see any downside.”

It may sound too good to be true, but that is the case with Internet economics in general these days.

Most Web merchants are so desperate for customers that, even as they hemorrhage red ink, they are willing to pay handsomely for referrals.

That is particularly true when the referred shoppers are fund-raising fanatics. As Sullivan said, “There is probably no more rabidly loyal group of people than supporters of a school. If you can tap into that enthusiasm, you’ve got something.”

To take part in these programs, consumers typically have to start their Web shopping excursions at one of the school-support sites. They are prompted--only once--to name the school they wish to support along with the city and state in which it is located.

From there, the parents can choose from a list of dozens if not hundreds of participating online merchants. Once they select a retailer, they are sent to that merchant’s site and the rest is taken care of automatically.

Shoppers will usually see a banner across the top of the screen, listing the designated school and the rebate amount offered by the retailer. If the shopper spends any money, the merchant and the referral site work together to send the appropriate rebate to the school.

For the school to collect, however, it has to agree to participate in the program by signing a form. The fund-raising sites have databases that include almost every school in the country, but most schools have not yet enrolled, partly because the concept is so new.

Schoolcash.com, for instance, lists more than 104,000 schools in its database, but only 2,000 have formally enrolled in the program so far, said David Greene, founder and chief executive of the Florham Park, N.J.-based company.

Parents can still designate a school that has not yet enrolled. Greene said his company will typically hold the accumulated money until the school does sign up for the program, sometimes calling to nudge them to do so.

“If they don’t want to join,” he said, “we’ll allocate the money to other schools.”

Other fund-raising sites include Shopforschool.com and Yourschoolshop.com. One Los Angeles-based site, HelpOurSchool.org, is a nonprofit organization. But most sites are for-profit, and typically make money by keeping about 10% of the rebate funds they collect from online retailers.

The rebates vary widely. Established retailers pay the least--Amazon.com pays 5%, for instance--because they are the least desperate for traffic.

Some fund-raiser sites also make money in other ways. Schoolcash.com, for instance, asks participating schools to distribute fliers on the program to parents. Many online retailers will pay dearly to be mentioned on these fliers.

Of course, privacy is always a concern when money and information are changing hands on the Internet. The leading fund-raising sites say they do not collect any personally identifiable data, nor do they collect or plan to sell aggregate data on their users’ shopping habits. Company officials said schools would not do business with them otherwise. But parents should read these sites’ privacy policies nonetheless.

Most of the fund-raiser sites send checks to participating schools two or three times each year. But experts say online fund-raising is not likely to supplant gift wrap sales or magazine subscription drives any time soon.

“Candy sales or gift wrap sales can easily bring in $10,000 or $20,000 for many schools,” Sullivan said. “That long tradition continues because that long tradition works.”

Times staff writer Greg Miller can be reached at greg.miller@latimes.com.

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The Shopping Math

On SchoolCash.com, consumers designate a school that will get a portion of the money they spend. A sampling of the approximately 150 merchants participating, and the percentage of the purchase price set aside for schools:

FragranceNet: 6%

JCPenney: 4

J. Crew: 4

OfficeMax.com: 4

Beyond.com: 4

Disney Store Online: 3

Dell: 1

DLJdirect*: $50

EarthLink**: $15

* Per new account

**For new subscribers

More.com: 20%