We have a contest each year on membership drive.
The class room with the most members recieves a
Pizza party and 2 hrs free time in the gym or outside depending on weather.. free playtime cost nothing and the kids love it...We split it up 1 winner k-2 and 1 winner 3-5.. The kids get moms,dads, grannys, grandpa, aunts uncles everybody possible...our membership cost is $3.00
1.50 to the class and 1.50 to pto.. So the teachers really push there kids as well. Our local pizza shack agreed to $1.00 off any purchase over 10.00 good for 5 times some on our pto membership cards it has 5 places for the guy at the pizza place to punch on the cards for $1.00 off..So it is a win win situation for tachers, kids, and the pto
Whew-Who! We have had great success with our new membership levels. Last year we had 80 members (remember we're a PTA so they are due paying members) and that was a 3% increase from the year prior. WELL... this year as of today, we have a membership of 125! I'm very excited. We have a school population of 700+/-. Of course I'd love to have 100% parents, but realistically at our school that isn't going to happen. We are only 8 away from having a 100% staff membership though. This is my last year as president of our PTA (we can only serve as president for 2 consecutive years), but I plan on staying on the board as one of the vice pres. and doing membership. Again, here's what we are doing this year:
$7 single membership
$10 family membership (any 2 adults)
$25 family spirit membership (any 2 adults plus 2 school spirit t-shirts)
*reg. price of the T-shirts from the school is $10 ea and we pay the school $7.50 per T-shirt that is given with the family spirit membership. So the parents save money by doing the $25 membership and the school still makes money on their T-shirts and we get 2 members! WIN-WIN-WIN
I'm shooting for a 100% increase this year. I really believe with this as our start, we can do it! Our membership drive isn't fundraiser for us. We only end of making $1 on the $25 membership, $2 on the family membership and $3 on the single membership. It just goes towards our office-type costs.
Something else that I think has helped us... we have partnered with several businesses in our community that have offered our PTA members some sort of discount. For instance, a tax preparation business is offering a 25% discount on tax preparations to our members who show their cards, Wendy's 10% off, a free drink with purchase at a little local restaurant, 10% off cards from Tony Roma's, etc. We also offer a free bag of popcorn to PTA members at our functions/events and our PTA members save $1 per child on the registration fee ($6 non-members, $5 members) for our Gordy's Kids Cooking Club after-school enrichment program.
We held a contest as well for the classroom with the most memberships from 8/26-9/30. The winning classroom received a bubble party. We bought a ton of bubble solution and wands as well as taped down bubble wrap to the concrete (we're an outside school) for the kids to jump on and pop to their hearts content.
Because of our low response to PTO memberships this year, our PTO board came up with the idea to have a one week contest among classrooms. The class who brings in the most memberships will get to keep the membership dues they bring in for their classroom (That would amount to about $100 for the teacher to spend on "fun" things for the class).
I'm working on a flyer to send home with the kids and I'm having trouble. Somehow I can't imagine the idea of winning membership dues sound like much of an incentive to the kids.
Any ideas?
