College-style fundraising coming to a school near you?

As a teacher and a PTA mom/officer/fun draiser, I have actually given this topic some thought. Most people in the community are tired of buying from catalogs, and many would rather just give a donation to charitable organizations anyway. Schools would actually "profit" more from a straight-up donation campaign than running a fund-raiser/sal es-type of campaign. With so many organizations and schools competing for money, especially in cities with so many parochial schools, this idea is even more appealing to me. For people who wish to support education outside of taxes, with money that goes straight to the schools and not through government bureaucracy, I think this could be a good thing.