We charge $6.00 to join the PTO and each family then gets a directory. We have very low attendance at our meetings...people just pay the 6 bucks to get the directory. Any hints on getting people to attend monthly PTO meetings?
Yikes! We just recently increased our membership dues to $30.00 per family. This includes a complete student directory (which highlights our "Parent Network" subscribers) and the PTO/school calendar of events and activities, etc... This may seem like a lot, but we have NO fundraisers. So... maybe it's not so bad?
When I raised our membership fee to $5.00 per family this year I included some incentives. Each member got a school logo key chain, the class with the highest participation got 25.00 to put toward a classroom gift, members receive an agenda prior to monthly meetings which includes a raffle ticket for a monthly prize (you have to be at the meeting to win) and the class(es) with the highest parent attendance at each monthly meeting received an ice cream treat at lunch. Worked well for us!
We charge about $4 per member. But for our fun events, we get many donations. Walmart gave us $1000 last year for our family fun nights. We had 4 of them. Perhaps you should consider another type of fundraiser. If your current fundraiser does not bring much money, look around. Do you have a committe or chair person who does fundraising? She should also look at going to businesses in your community for donation. We had restaurants donate food, electronics stores give us $100 gift cards for prizes, etc. You'll have to be creative and persistent. Tell the businesses you will thank them in your newsletters, etc. giving them "advertising". They'll want to know wiifm (what's in it for me). Its also a tax write off for them--give them a copy of your tax exempt info.
