Parent permission slip

A parent permission slip is the adult’s yes before a student is asked to take part in a fundraiser — carrying a form, sharing a store link, or being named on a page. It is not an order form and it is not a donation letter. If your district already has a required slip, use theirs. This template is a starting draft for groups that do not have one yet, not a legal opinion.

Placeholders are [GROUP NAME] and other blanks. Do not invent a school name to make the preview look live. The download emails you the file; enter your email in the form at the bottom. That path is a template download, tagged separately from a sales enquiry.

Who this slip is for

Schools, teams, scouts, churches, and clubs that involve minors in an ask. The signer is a parent or guardian. The student is not the contracting party. Boosters and PTAs use this when the school’s own packet does not already cover the activity you are about to run. If the school packet does cover it, do not issue a second slip that conflicts. One adult signature on the controlling document is enough.

It is not for adult-only committees. If no student is sharing, selling, or being named, you do not need this object. It is not a photo-release unless you add a photo line that your district already uses. Do not hide a photo-release inside a fundraising yes. Separate boxes, or separate forms.

What permission is actually for

Three things, stated in plain language. The student may take home a packet or a link and ask friends, family, and neighbors — not strangers, not a route, not a competition to approach people they do not know. The student may be listed as a seller or a participant in the group’s internal tally. The student may, if you check a separate box, be named on a participant page or storefront that other people will see. That third box should be optional whenever the program can run without a public child-named page. Some families will refuse the public page and still sell on paper. Design the fundraiser so that refusal is possible.

Permission is not permission to hold cash if policy forbids it. Permission is not permission to miss class. Permission is not a waiver you downloaded from somewhere else and pasted under a candy sale. If you need a waiver for an event, that is a different document with different review. Do not stack legal genres on one page to save a copy count.

Public pages and student names

Team donation tools and some stores show a participant name. That is a real choice, not a default. Put it on the slip as its own yes/no. If a family says no to a public name, the student should still be able to take part in a way that does not require the page — a paper order form, an adult sharing a group store without the child’s name, a household gift through a letter. If the platform cannot operate without a child-named page, say that before the family signs, and let them opt out of the fundraiser. Silent enrollment into a public leaderboard is how you earn a complaint you cannot fix mid-window.

Follow district and league rules on student images, last names, and how minors may communicate. This template does not override them. If students may not message anyone, the slip should not imply that they should. Adults own the ask. Students may hand a form to people they already know when policy allows it.

Dates, money, and what you must not promise

Print the window: when the activity starts, when forms or online orders are due, and the last-safe-order date if a product is involved. Do not print a delivery lead time. Do not print a guaranteed profit. Do not print a platform fee unless you looked it up for this window. if an online checkout is part of the activity — the adult should know that a paid order is a purchase, and that a donation page is a gift, before they sign.

State how money moves. Checks payable to which account. Whether cash is allowed. Whether a student may carry either. If the answer is never, write never. Teachers are not the till. Customer service for the product program is not the classroom.

How to send it and how to store it

Send the slip before the packet, not stapled behind an order form the student already filled. A yes after the fact is not consent. Give a return date that sits before anyone is asked to share a link. Keep signed slips with the treasurer or the volunteer named in policy, not in a coach’s passenger seat. You do not need to collect a novel. You need a dated signature and the checkboxes the family actually marked.

If a family does not return it, the student is not in the fundraiser. Do not “just add them” to a public dashboard so the team total looks busier. Participation is opt-in. Count sellers as people with slips, the same way you count sellers as people who will actually ask on the profit worksheet.

Slip preview

Edit every bracket. If a checkbox does not apply to your mechanism, delete it rather than leaving a nonsense option.

[GROUP NAME] — PARENT / GUARDIAN PERMISSION
Fundraiser window: [START DATE] through [FORM OR ORDER DUE DATE]
Last-safe-order date (product programs only): [DATE]
This page is not an order. This page is not a donation.

Student name: ________________________________
Grade / team / den (if any): _________________
Parent or guardian name: _____________________
Phone or email: ______________________________

I understand that [GROUP NAME] is raising money for [SPECIFIC GOAL]. The amount we need in hand is [DOLLAR GOAL] by [DATE THE MONEY IS NEEDED]. Those figures are for information. Signing this slip does not commit our household to a dollar amount.

I give permission for my student to take part as follows (check all that apply):

[ ] Ask friends, family, and neighbors we already know, using the packet or link the committee provides. Not people we do not know.

[ ] Be listed on the committee’s internal seller list.

[ ] Be named on a participant page or storefront that other people can see.
 If I do not check this box, my student may still take part in a non-public way if the committee offers one. If the program cannot run without a public name, we decline participation.

[ ] Carry a paper order form home. Students may not carry cash unless policy explicitly allows it. Our policy on cash is: [NEVER / ALLOWED TO ADULT NAME ONLY].

Checks, if any, are payable to: [ACCOUNT NAME].
Teachers and the front office are not collecting money unless policy says so in writing.

I understand this is not a delivery promise for any item. I will not receive a platform-fee figure from this slip; if we check out online, we will look at the live checkout that week.

Photo or last-name use (separate from fundraising participation):
[ ] Allowed as already described in the district / organization media policy
[ ] Not allowed

Signature of parent or guardian: ______________________ Date: __________

Questions: [COMMITTEE NAME, EMAIL, PHONE]
This slip does not replace school, league, or church rules. Where those rules are stricter, they win.

When you should not use this draft

If counsel, a district office, or a council already issued language, use that language. If you are running an event that needs a liability waiver, get that waiver from the organization that owns the event. If the “fundraiser” is actually one family’s hardship, do not send a permission slip for classmates to share a medical story. That is the family’s page to create, or not.

If you cannot offer a non-public way to take part and you know some families will refuse a public name, pick a different mechanism — paper-only, adult-only sharing, a sponsor drive — before you print. A slip that exists to pressure a yes is not consent. It is a script.

Keep this with the planning checklist so the return date for slips sits before the first ask, not after the kickoff assembly. Kickoff without permission is a mess you will spend the window unwinding.

How this sits next to a district packet

Many schools already send a yearly activities permission, a handbook acknowledgment, or a media release. Read those before you duplicate work. If the district slip already covers “fundraising activities as described by the school,” you may only need a short addendum: this window’s dates, this mechanism, the public-name box. If the district slip is silent on public participant pages, do not assume silence is a yes. Add the box. If the district forbids student-named pages, do not offer the box. Change the mechanism.

Translate, if families in the building need it. A slip only in English in a bilingual community is a participation filter you did not mean to build. We will not invent which languages you need. Ask the office what they already use for other notices, and match that. The facts on the page stay the same: dates, goal in dollars, what the student may be asked to do, what they may not do with money.

Return method should be as boring as the rest of school paper: a folder, a sealed envelope to a named adult, a form the office already knows how to collect. Do not invent a new dropbox in a coach’s trunk. Lost slips are unconsented students. Treat the stack like attendance sheets, not like extra flyers.

Get the file

Enter your email below. We email you the permission slip as a file to edit. Have someone who owns policy at your school or organization read it before you duplicate it. This download is not legal advice and not a sales call.