Never even considered the option of charging our members dues. We shyed away from becoming a PTA because of the annual members dues and they are extremely low.
I would say a jump like that would be extreme and would prefer a $5 increase.
What our school does fundraising wise is a Fall Giftwrap sale, Spring Chocolates, 2 family fun oriented fairs. We have what I consider a large amount of money in the bank. We have also added doing entertainment books and an election day bake sale. Sometimes the family fun nites don't bring in as much and we break even but that is great. Some parents don't buy from our sales either they will submit $5-10 instead.
What we have started doing is before each fundraiser we send out a flyer to all families listing exactly what the $$ is spent on what programs are funded because of district budget cuts or not getting a grant approved.
We try to select fund raisers that appeal to everyone and are a good service.
We charge $5 for a family membership. This covers the cost of materials (magnet with schedule, shipping and some other admin stuff). We just use this to break even on this stuff.
I think $50 would be insane. IF we did NO other fundraisers, people might do it, but I think people would have issue with it still
We do not charge dues at our school (private religious K3-8) and never have. Our parents would probably freak if I asked for $50, mainly because with tuition being so high and then we have an Annual Fund drive along with a large spring Auction. I just couldn't ask them for more. Since dues have not been a tradition, it would be hard to start.
Shelly
After this years conference in Chicago, we decided that everyone is a member if they have a child at our school or is a staff member. We placed too much effort all year trying to snag all the teachers to join. We also had only about 125 of 1200 families join.
We will proceed throughout the year with a volunteer question form and increase our volunteer list. We cannot do a membership drive all year with dues, but we can hand out our volunteer request form all year. Thanks Tim for a Great Conference in Chicago!! :cool:
We changed our bylaws last year to make everyone with a child at the school a member of our PTO and eliminated membership fees. Instead we did a pledge drive with a more professional brochure and asked for higher pledge amounts. We have found that if you ask for $25 or more, all you get is the $25. But if you give choices and maybe a special incentive for the highest level (we give a free school t-shirt or copy of the yearbook) then people give much more. We doubled our pledge drive money.
In the fall, due to budget problems in our state, we need to ask for even more money. It is scary, but we have pledged money to our school to help pay for some aide positions that would have been eliminated. We are doing a big campaign and hoping to raise more.
I personally like the idea of everyone being members.
We have charged dues in the past, mainly to use as start-up money each year. I have battled this for the past two years in office and finally won...the board of directors is now budgeting us an amount actually higher than the dues brought in and we are doing away with the dues. Yeah! I felt that the dues kept some families from joining and participating in the PTO even though it was an amount equivalent to $5 per family. Having said that, I would balk in paying $50 regardless of the fewer fundraisers. :cool:
