PTO Today

Do you appreciate the help you get from parents? Do they know that you do?

Volunteer appreciation is best when it’s real and obvious and year-round. If the only time your volunteers feel thanked is one time, at the end of the year, then you’re likely to have trouble keeping your current help and attracting new help.

We’ve gathered a bunch of great, simple appreciation ideas that can help you with this challenge right now. Check out our creative list of volunteer appreciation ideas on the website.

We’ve gathered a bunch of great, simple appreciation ideas that can help you with this challenge right now. Check out our message boards thread in our online Community on volunteer appreciation. Would love to hear what’s worked for you.

I love Twitter! It’s such a great place to stay on top of the latest trends, news, and also to find some talented bloggers. Today I found a link to this blog post about a PTO wannabe.  If the post wasn’t so infuriating it would be funny!

Lindsey Ferrier writes about her desire to be a valued member of her school’s PTO. Sounds like a good and attainable goal. So here’s someone  – as far as I can tell from her blog — who is bright, capable and has a good sense of humor. Sign her up, right? Wrong. This woman volunteered not once, not twice, but three times… without even an email acknowledging her offers!  Ouch. Now that’s what  I call frustrating.

Please don’t let this happen in your group! We are several months into the school year. Make it someone on your board’s charter to go through your forms and emails and match the volunteer offers up to volunteer opportunities.  Lots of good articles on our site on how to attract and keep volunteers -take few minutes to read them. Do you have a system for managing your volunteers? If yes, tell us how you don’t let people like Lyndsey fall through the cracks. If no, perhaps you’d like to check out our PTO Manager/Volunteer Builder software package.

Find a way to let those who volunteers help out. If you can’t use them right away, at least email them back and thank them for their offer and tell them you’ll call them when the next volunteer job comes up. Communication is key. Despite the lack of communication and validation from her PTO, Lindsey hasn’t given up. But most people most certainly will!

Oh, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter – http://twitter.com/ptotoday.

Image: Andy Newson / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Kind of a controversial tip for you this week, and it starts with a question: Has your leadership started slipping into a “this is what works for us and we’re the only ones involved, anyway” mindset?

While I understand the thinking, slipping into that mindset is a sure-fire way to close off involvement and to earn a clique reputation, even if it’s undeserved. Think about the one parent (who barely knows you guys) who has been thinking about getting involved. Will she feel comfortable finding your house and entering this very social, personal atmosphere? Unlikely. She’ll probably choose to stay home.

But that’s just one scenario. Have you stopped doing introductions and welcomes and nametags (because, well, most of us know each other)? Have you started just scheduling the regulars to volunteer (because no one else ever wants to help)?

Leadership isn’t easy, and good leadership is often not convenient. Taking those extra steps to be welcoming and open to even the few newcomers is part of the job. Work at keeping at it even when it feels pointless. It’s not. If you do have only a small handful of core volunteers, then just one or two more can make a big difference. And remaining open to that help is essential to bringing in the newcomers.

I would love to hear whether you’ve experienced this in your group or worked to solve it in some way; please join the discussion we started on our message boards. We also have a ton of other great articles and resources on getting more parents involved.

Save time!

Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up that we have reorganized the popular File Exchange section of our site. We’ve added new categories, renamed a few, and moved around a bunch of files that were getting lost — so leaders can easily find the forms, flyers, letters, and surveys that they need. Hopefully, the changes will also take the guess work out of where to put something when you upload files to share with others.

Some new categories include:

• volunteer recruitment
• fundraiser forms & letters
• fun run, walk-a-thon
• spaghetti dinner
• holiday shops
• audits
• community service

New file additions of note include a slew of generic parent group logos and a new email opt-in form.

Thank you to all who have uploaded documents to share with fellow parent group leaders. We hear from leaders all the time that the file exchange is such  a powerful resource.  Happy sharing and swapping!

Love it when districts “get it” when it comes to honoring and valuing volunteer efforts in schools.  Here’s a recent parent-focused release from the Anoka-Hennepin district in Minnesota that captures that well.

Two more cool things about the release: 

1. All that data on volunteer hours was captured because the district uses our PTO Manager “Volunteer Builder” software to help encourage volunteering and to track volunteer efforts.  Neat to see such nice end results.

2. We’re goig to be in Anoka-Hennepin Tuesday for our PTO Expo.  I’ll be presenting a “best habits of successful PTOs and PTAs” keynote in the morning.  If you’re in the area, i hope you’ll come by.

That seems about dead-on perfect, no?  Love the fact that this Tennessee super honors parents. Love the fact that this PTO leader was the big winner.  And love her very humble and very appropriate – we do it for the kids — reaction.  Cool.

In a perfect world, all of our volunteer efforts would garner this kind of praise.  It’s well-deserved, and it also serves to encourage others to jump in.  That’s also the spirit of our annual Parent Group of the Year campaign. Has your group bragged (It’s OK! It’s Ok!) yet this year?  You should. Nice prizes, too, thanks to our friends at DirectTV.

Here’s a lesson in the power of impressions over reality and the dangers of unintended consequences.  It’s from New Jersey where one PTO’s “tree” (in the school hallway, each leaf represents a family that donated to the PTO) is causing quite a stir.

Worth noting first that i am 100% certain that the PTO leaders here had no intention of hurting anyone’s feelings or causing harm.

But that doesn’t change how some parents feel, and that reality has to be taken into account.  I hope these guys can all come back together.  It sounds like this group already does a great job of thanking volunteers all year round, so my suggestion:  how about makig this tree two times or three times as big and combining the $$ donators and the hours donators on one big community tree in a “we’re all in this together” spirit.

How do you feel about this dust-up?  Should the parents who donated nothing just pony up a buck and get a leaf?  Or is this gripe legit?

Here’s a concept I hope you can run with. Check out this day-long, free “Parent University” put on by a Nevada PTO. What a service for the community’s families. Fifty parents attended and I’m sure got a ton of benefit, but every family in that school received a very clear message on what this PTO is all about.

Run on a Saturday, topics and guest experts ranged from academics to discipline to dealing with parent stress and more. Very cool.

So I received this note in my inbox this morning, and it made my day. Thought I’d share:

Dear Mr. Sullivan and everyone at PTO today-

On behalf of the Fairview Elementary Home and School Association in Bloomfield, New Jersey, I would like to thank you for our inclusion in the Parent Group of the Year Editor’s Choice category. Needless to say, it is wonderful to have the constant efforts of our volunteers recognized and applauded. More than anything, it gave me the opportunity to give kudos to everyone in front of our Back To School Night crowd and everyone was thrilled. The men and women that I work with at Fairview School constantly go above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that our kids have the best education possible. We are not a rich school by monetary standards, but we are rich in family, in friendship, and in dedication to our children. Sitting down to think over the entire year before writing our entry essay enabled us to reflect and rejoice on our accomplishments throughout the year and to recall the dozens and dozens of volunteers who made it possible. I am very grateful to lead a group of parents (and teachers and staff) who are so open and willing, and all of this with the full support and cheerleading of the administration.

Thank you again for allowing us to shine the spotlight on our volunteers and families. We sincerely appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Lyn Collins
Co-President
Fairview Home and School Association

I couldn’t have loved that more, especially the emphasis on the process and the value in taking the time to celebrate your accomplishments (even for groups that don’t win the big prizes.

I hope you’ll apply for the Parent Group of the Year program this year. As Lyn so nicely points out, it’s well worth it. Good luck!

Ran across this mom’s blog and couldn’t help but laugh. Talented writer who really captures a day many of us have also had. How many of us can commiserate with these frustrations that sometimes, regrettably go along with school volunteering?