One key to 100% participation is how you define membership. I believe that PottsvilleMom is from a very small, active community and anyone can join the PTO. So if they have 400 families, they are looking for 400 members to equal 100%. So active families like hers can recruit grandparents and others to help make up the deficit.
Our PTO is in a large metropolitan area. Sorry, but there are just a lot wildcards out there. We feel the need to limit our membership to the families of currently enrolled children. (Not that either approach is right or wrong - you just have to pick what works for your situation.)
For us to get 100%, that means every family would have to join. It's just not going to happen. (And we have family memberships, so a Mom and Dad don't count as 2 even if they both join and pay twice.) So while it's nice to shoot for 100%, we don't dwell on it after the membership drive.
Why do we charge at all? We've discussed that a lot, because essentially there's no difference between paid members and others once we get started. (All our general votes are unanimous, so unless we truly hit some controversy in the future - voting isn't an issue.) But we like pushing for that extra level of commitment. It's a good way to start the year and gives us a reason to promote/market the PTO strongly as part of the kickoff. This increases our visibility, and it does provide some seed funds. It works well for us.
Note - in my middle school PTO, it's a totally different story as the PTO is only one of many campus organizations rather than a central hub. That group does not charge dues and assumes all families are members.
Good idea if you can afford it. I often take money from my own pocket to see to it some kids that would not be able to go get to. Unfortantly the expense to fund this for all grades would be prohibitative and the school board provides some of the funding, but not all. The average field trip for us would run (my best guess this morning working from memory) around 900 per grade level. Times 3 field trips a year times 7 grade levels - you get the idea (and that does not include various costs the board already provides for which if we started this they would probably say oh well no reason for us to do that any more!)
I still can not comptemplate 100% PTO membership [img]smile.gif[/img]
Pottsvillemom, thanks for you response. Any help on how to get the 100% We will be giving each class with 100% and ice cream party. We are brand new this year and everything or alomost everything that we do comes out of my pocket. So the $5.00 will help to keep the PTO going. Just wondering how else can I get these parents to send in $5.00.
Maybe this is simplistic, but our parents join to help the PTO raise the money needed for the things the school can't buy.
Like I said, we have 500 kids and we raised $1000 on membership. One thing we have found is that the more we carry over from the previous year the harder it is to get to the 100% mark.
Classes with 100% get a popsicle party. Some send the money just so their kid gets a popsicle.
Either way we deposit it. It must be working. For the last 10 years, we have had 100% membership (one member per child). In addition, these members raised $20,000 AGAIN this year with our Harvest Hoedown.
Following along on the chain of thoughts here let me ask:
What value is there to membership? Other than you get to vote on some issues that you are probably not as well versed as the board members?
We expect people to hand over x dollars to obtain a card that says they are members of the PTO.
As a part of our PTO drive we sought out area merchants willing to give the holders of our PTO cards a discount. Some of these are 20% most are 10%. Our membership doubled, but it still is not anywhere near our goal of 50%.
We have a field trip this Friday for our 5th grade - several of our students are not going to be able to go, because their families can not afford the $4. These parents for the most part are also not members of the PTO.
I have been thinking what is the point of having to pay for membership when they can not even afford to send their kids on a field trip. And these are true ecconomic reasons for the most part. Not being able to afford membership denies them a certain level of participation, yet many of these parents are among my most dedicated volunteers!
Of course most of this is unique to my school and district, but many here are in the same boat, we can't get a membership participation, yet our parents are as dedicated as any others to the development of the education of their children.
