Fall kicks off the annual fundraising campaign conducted by the PTSA on behalf of Lincoln High School and is the primary fundraising avenue for the school. Additional fundraising is conducted throughout the year by students, individual athletic programs, theater, and individual programs. NO other campaign supports all students at Lincoln. 

Most annual campaign funding supports PAL (performing arts), athletics, student support (tutoring and specialists), and diversity equity and inclusion programs and awareness efforts. Funding also supports teacher grant requests, ASB, student events, library, and staff appreciation. All money raised this year will be spent this year (so hitting our target goal is important)!

How & why is LHS PTSA funding different from other north end high schools?

Early in the formation of the school, with an eye to equity and access, the decision was made with school administrators that Lincoln PTSA would provide the structure and support for all programs at Lincoln, even those usually supported by booster clubs, like athletics and the arts. With that in mind, the PTSA absorbed an already-forming PAL (Performing Arts for Lincoln) committee and started working toward an Athletics committee to serve all sports teams. We chose the Cheddar-Up fundraising platform that would allow us to provide an accessible fundraising platform for all of the stakeholders in our programs, like class parent representatives, sports teams, staff appreciation, community support and a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. Other north end schools form booster clubs that work independent from the school and the PTSA, potentially missing the needs of students and families who are unable to participate or who need additional support for a successful high school academic experience. 

How does it all work?

First, our budget is set in the spring of the year prior, as a set of funding goals created with input from the following sources:

1. Administration, regarding holes in their own budget due to the diverse academic, social and emotional needs of our students, or “general academics”,

2. Lincoln’s athletics director and performing arts faculty to determine immediate and long-term needs for equipment and supplies, and 

3. From our own PTSA via parent volunteers, coaches, and parent representatives in identifying areas of need for our students, like academic support, athletic trainer hours to cover our geographic challenges for our athletic teams, and seeding nascent programs in the arts and academics. 

Our fall campaign provides the necessary funds to meet these goals, with the help of a bit of carryover from the year prior. Currently, the PTSA focuses the majority of its funds on General Academic Support: grants for classroom teachers and departments to help them purchase innovative curriculum or curriculum support, additional hours for our BASH program to provide academic support to students, treats and prizes for students incentives, parent education programs, and funds to resupply consumable materials in our STEM and arts programs. 

Even though the PTSA only does ONE fall fundraising campaign, we also help coordinate other fundraising events for each committee within our organization all year long. Each specific committee might use these fundraisers for community building, or they may use them to provide specific support for a project or need. 

Wow! That’s a lot of fundraising!

It is! But with an enrollment of over 1600 students and the funding process for a new school being completely unrelated to the extraordinary circumstances we have faced since opening, coupled with inadequate school funding across the district, this is how we support our school and our students so that every Lincoln student has the basic needs met for a successful and engaging high school experience. We continue to seek grants and other sources to provide for the basic needs of our programs and we encourage parents and the community to continue to advocate for improved school funding across our district, this is the situation in which we find ourselves right now. 

Got it! But I still have questions!

We hope this has helped give parents some insight into our process and the how’s and why’s of what the PTSA does with the funds you’ve so generously donated, but if you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us at info@lincolnseattleptsa.org. As always, we also welcome your experience and encourage you to get involved by volunteering!

Please fill out the volunteer interest form to learn more