As of 2011[update], in the United States schools and other non-profits raised $1.7 billion each year by selling popular consumer items.
However, in the United States door-to-door sales came under scrutiny in 1997 following the murder of an 11-year-old New Jersey boy who was killed while fundraising unsupervised in his neighborhood.
As of 2010, there are over a thousand fundraising companies in the United States offering their products and services to schools and their associated nonprofit parent teacher groups.
Additionally, Fundraising Software is also now available allowing a school to have their own platform that makes it easy to engage students, parents, faculty, donors, and alumni with compelling communication campaigns.
With these types of fundraising activities, the school requests donations from local restaurants and businesses in their area, that are then offered at the event.
In the case of an auction, people are allowed to bid on the dinner, limousine ride, or whatever was donated by the local businesses in the community.
The families redeem the gift cards at full face value, and the discount or rebate is retained by the non-profit organization as revenue.
According to ShopWithScrip, scrip is a reduction in purchase price from the face value, and is in effect a rebate from the retailer, and as such is not considered gross income.
[13] Additionally, general economic hardships can cause school fundraisers to earn less, as volunteer time is spread thin with more families requiring dual incomes.