Passive Fundraiser Ideas for Portland-Area PTAs

Published August 4, 2026 by Ryan Young, founder of ParentKind

Passive fundraisers run in the background all year, or take one bounded commitment, without a sale, an event, or ongoing volunteer management. For Portland-area PTAs, the main categories worth considering are clothing donation programs, a one-week donation drive, grocery loyalty rewards, BottleDrop Blue Bags, receipt and app-based rewards, and employer donation matching. None of them replace a big annual fundraiser, but stacked together they add up.

What actually counts as "passive"?

A lot of fundraiser lists call things "passive" that still take real setup: someone has to launch it, promote it, or coordinate a short window of activity.

Passive here doesn't mean zero effort ever; it means no ongoing sales, no event to plan for attendees, and no repeated ask throughout the year. Some of what's below is genuinely set-it-and-forget-it. Others take one volunteer for a short, bounded stretch, like a single week, but nothing that drags on or repeats.

Clothing donation programs

Donated clothing families were getting rid of anyway can also fund the school, without asking for anything additional. National programs like Savers FUNDrive collect donated clothing and pay based on total weight.

ParentKind is a Portland-based example built around porch pickup instead of a drop-off drive; reach out to learn what it would mean for your PTA. Either way, it's a genuinely passive source of funding once a program is in place, since it's converting something families are already discarding into support for the school.

Host a one-week donation drive

Porch pickup only covers SE Portland directly, but PTAs in the suburbs can still take part with a short donation drive:

• ParentKind provides a table and signage.
• One volunteer unfolds the table near where families gather for drop-off in the mornings and puts the provided table cover on.
• Families drop off bags of outgrown clothes before school.
• A volunteer moves the donations inside each morning.
• ParentKind picks up the full collection at the end of the week.

Beyond that, all that's needed from the PTA is sending out one message to families. It's a single bounded commitment rather than an ongoing program, and it still turns clothes a family was already getting rid of into funding for the school. This is the most direct way for a Portland-area PTA outside the immediate service area to participate.

Grocery store loyalty rewards

Most major grocery chains run a program where shoppers link a loyalty card to a school, and the store donates a small percentage of purchases back. In the Portland area, Fred Meyer's Community Rewards program is the most common version families already have access to.

The payout per household is small, but since it costs families nothing and takes about five minutes to set up once, it's worth having families sign up even if it's never your primary source of funding.

BottleDrop Blue Bags

Oregon's bottle deposit system makes this one particularly effective here:

• The PTA signs up for a free BottleDrop Give account and distributes Blue Bags to families.
• Families fill their bags with empty deposit bottles and cans.
• Families return the bags at any BottleDrop location themselves, no sorting or counting required from the PTA.
• The deposit value lands in the school's account automatically.

Families who already return their own cans and bottles are just redirecting containers they'd be redeeming anyway. It's one of the more genuinely passive options here, since the PTA's only ongoing task is keeping bags in supply. My kids go to Abernethy Elementary in SE Portland, and I know they've had success with this particular fundraiser.

Receipt and app-based rewards

Box Tops for Education has moved to an app where families scan grocery receipts instead of clipping paper box tops. It's genuinely passive and costs nothing, but the payout per family is small, usually a few cents per eligible product. Worth having as a standing option, not worth building a campaign around.

It's also a good example of why it's smart to have more than one passive program running: individual corporate programs can and do change or shut down (AmazonSmile, once a popular passive option for schools, was discontinued in 2023), so spreading across a few smaller ones is more durable than depending on one.

Employer donation matching

Many employers will match an employee's charitable donations, sometimes dollar for dollar. If your PTA operates under a nonprofit umbrella that can accept matched gifts, a one-time email asking families to check whether their employer offers a matching program can turn an existing donation into double the money, with no additional ask.