Our school puts out a membership package in a sense that it contains a membership registration form, volunteer form, emergency notification form, etc. For becoming a PTO member, the family receives the PTO school directory and is part of the emergency phone chain. Non members cannot obtain those.
If they can purchase the directory on its own, families may not feel the need to join the PTO. However, if you make it so that they can only get the directory by joining, then that is their incentive. A tshirt would be costly and you could use that as a fundraiser, so I wouldn't include it. A car magnet, however, may be a better choice.
You may also want to address the accomplishments of your PTO in the welcome letter and inform parents (or remind them) how much the PTO has done for your school. That way they will realize that the $$ is going for a good cause.

We are the Eagles the school is Holliday... thanks for your thoughts,

Hi Heshero...we've done both things and I really didn't see too much difference in the numbers that joined to tell you the truth. It is actually surprising...but we included a calendar and a car magnet sold separately for a total of 6.50 or you got both for membership at 7.50 and we didn't see that many more folks (like less than 10) as different in the numbers. Sounds weird. If you are only looking at a 2 dollar impact from membership then perhaps you should follow Tim's advice of making everyone an automatic members and see if that causes there to be more support of the organization as a whole.

I'd be happy to assist with the slogan if you can give me some idea on the mascot or the theme of what you'd like to portray on the shirts...
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Hi I am new here and I have some questions. Last year we have a HUGE drop in our Membership #'s and I am trying to find a way to get them back up. One thing I thought about doing is something we have never done before. The idea is to do a membership package.. we usually have a $2.00 membership, but this year I thought we might do a package that includes a membership, a school directory( usually costs $1) and a PTO T-shirt all for $10. We might even iinclude a school calendar with PTO events( meetings etc) and school holidays on there. Does anyone else do this and how well does it go over... give me a idea of a motto or slogan to put on the back of our shirts!!