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School Business Officials' Toolkit: Balancing SBOs and Booster Groups

Parent Booster USA

Jul 29, 2020

Bees serve a large purpose in nature. Without them, the absence of pollination can throw off an entire ecosystem! In fact, we rely on bees for more than just their production of honey. More importantly, pollination helps maintain plant life, especially those we grow for food.

Booster clubs are the bees when it comes to the school’s ecosystem. School business officials have to make sure the bees are doing their jobs without buzzing where they are not supposed to. These intrusions potentially cause liability or distractions, impeding the school’s normal functions and flow. With the proper balance, school business officials and booster clubs are a perfect match.

So, as a school business official (SBO), do you ever wish you had a better understanding of what these booster groups do? Likewise, do you wish you had a checklist, or a search to help you understand what you should or shouldn’t do for a booster group?

At Parent Booster USA, we have been going the extra mile to discover the essence of the school and booster relationship. In an effort to bring our most helpful resources together in one place, we have created the School Business Officials' Toolkit.

What’s in the toolkit?

We’re listening to you! From the questions we received, we collected a meaningful set of resources SBOs can use to maintain their relationships with booster groups. We based it on three factors:

Following school, state, and federal fundraising rules
Using appropriate financial controls
Reducing operational risks

In this post, you’ll find descriptions of the various tools as they pertain to these main areas of concern and how you can use them to your benefit.

Part 1: Following school, state, and federal fundraising rules

Tool 1 - BoosterCheck service. With BoosterCheck, you can search for tax-exempt organizations and request a school-district-wide review of fundraising groups in your area. For a limited time, use code GOFREE20 to obtain your free report of school booster groups in your school or district.
Tool 2 - Bylaws generator. With this special version of PBUSA’s bylaws generator, you can create bylaws for your school district’s fundraising groups, and make sure your school district’s rules are included in these bylaws.
Tool 3 - Officer training modules [coming soon]. These are officer training modules you can use to certify/authorize booster clubs each year. Four categories include: structure, financial procedures, fundraising procedures, and insurance.
Tool 4 - State-by-state requirements. With PBUSA’s interactive state requirements map, you can easily check the required filings for your state's booster organizations. Are your local boosters compliant?

Part 2: Using appropriate financial controls

Tool 1 - Financial controls worksheet. A worksheet that provides recommended financial control procedures all booster clubs should implement.
Tool 2 - The Embezzler Next Door. A video we recommend showing each year as a requirement for “certifying” or “sanctioning” boosters on the dangers of potential embezzlement within groups. This includes ways to create financial controls, as well as enforce and maintain them.
Tool 3 - Internal audit guidelines. Step-by-step guidelines for conducting an internal audit.

Part 3: Reducing operation risks

Tool 1 - Risk reduction webinar [coming soon] and worksheet. A video with an accompanying worksheet that lets boosters evaluate potential risks and how to modify/manage these and other risks.
Tool 2 - Risks and insurance. Information on how to obtain the appropriate insurance for events and other liabilities for booster groups.
Tool 3 - Reducing school risks informational. Explains common practices to reduce common risks overall.

We can’t wait to work with you

We are excited here at PBUSA to bring you our new School Business Officials' Toolkit.

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