Our first Superstar Volunteer is Sunnie Robles-Schmidt from Santa Rosa, California. Props to Sunnie who has figured out how to juggle her busy family life AND volunteer at both the elementary school and high school. Read Sunnie’s full story to learn more about what kind of volunteer work brings her joy. Congrats Sunnie, for being the first SBLI Superstar Volunteer and for winning $500 for your school!

Do you have a volunteer at your school that you think deserves a SBLI Superstar Volunteer designation? Nominate him or her today – winners get a $500 donation to their school and will be featured on both ptotoday.com and SBLI, just like Sunnie!

We hosted a coffee for local PTO and PTA leaders last week here at the office. The topic of volunteer appreciation came up along with my advice to thank more people more often. One of our guest replied, “But we can’t afford that.”

It got me thinking that some leaders think appreciation always has to be a gift or a luncheon or a plaque. No way! While tangible appreciation has its place, that kind of paid effort isn’t nearly as effective as a simple written or spoken thank-you shared soon after an event or a contribution. The two-line email. The quick, public mention during your meeting. The note in your newsletter. Those are the things that pay dividends well beyond their cost.

If your group doesn’t have that habit now, it could be the best change you make this year. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, if you don’t personally have that gene (it’s not natural to everyone), try to find a volunteer who does and appoint him or her as your official or unofficial Czar of Thanks. It can fundamentally change how your group is perceived by the wider community at your school.

Looking for more on appreciation? Check out these resources from ptotoday.com:

• Last-Minute Appreciation Ideas (these quick and easy ideas work for more than just teachers!)
• Volunteer ”Perk Points”
• Appreciation Letter

While many groups thrive at organized volunteer appreciation and teacher appreciation, they often fall short on the more basic and more important everyday thank-yous that can make a huge difference in long-term engagement.

I’m not talking about big gifts or parties. I’m talking quick emails, one-line mentions in the newsletter, or a simple shout-out at a meeting or event. It’s amazing how powerful those little steps can be. For sure, the recipient of your thanks feels good. But thanking frequently and publicly and broadly also affects the impression of your group with the entire wider audience at your school. Your group isn’t one that takes help for granted; instead, you’re one that knows how busy everyone is and appreciates every little bit of assistance you receive. That’s a powerful message.

If it’s not your strength (it doesn’t come naturally to me, for example), make “thank-you chairperson” a new job within your group. Seriously — find someone with the gene and let her go nuts. Your whole group and school will be better for it.

We have a great piece online about appreciation and thanking volunteers and helpers. And — from me — thanks for all you do for your school. You’re making a big difference.

And actually, my tip this week comes from a Facebook connection I made with an involved PTO mom. Her advice (and I concur): Never give an outright “no” to an offer of help from a parent at your school. It sends exactly the wrong message and is the first step in getting a clique reputation.

Yes, you may have enough help for this particular effort (and too many volunteers can be almost as bad as not enough), but take the time to explain that to the parent offering — and always have another nice volunteering opportunity (or even better, a few choices) to connect that parent with. The worst thing you can do is to simply say no and hope she calls back again later. Most often, she won’t. And she’ll think your frequent requests for help are hollow.

It actually takes work and attention to cultivate more new volunteers. Little steps mean a lot. And little mistakes can do real harm. If this is a challenge for you, you might also like this article about 13 keys to build involvement.

Good luck!

But with all that, don’t overlook the accomplishments of one of the most important players at your school — your parent group. If you haven’t yet publicized all the great work your PTO or PTA has done this year, it’s time to polish up that horn and toot it.

Telling your school community about all the classroom supplies, enrichment experiences, family events, and more provided by your group isn’t an ego trip. Actually, it’s important on two levels: first, it builds your reputation as a successful group that does great things for the school and is worth getting involved in; and second, it’s really the best way to show parents that the hours they’ve volunteered and the money they’ve helped raise has had tangible results. They can share the pride in those accomplishments, and isn’t that a great feeling to share?

And while you’re tooting, take the time to put together a Parent Group of the Year entry. We started the Parent Group of the Year search more than 10 years ago to help give school parent groups the recognition they deserve. Entering is easy — just tell us your story in your own words. We’ll be awarding thousands of dollars in cash and prizes.

The deadline to enter is June 1. It’s always fun and inspiring to read the stories that come in; we’d love to hear about what your group has done, too. Good luck — and thanks for all you do!

Before long, you’ll be thinking about what to do for your end-of-year volunteer appreciation. No rest for the weary! In this video Tim talks about what to avoid this spring when you execute your volunteer appreciation program.

What is your PTO or PTA board doing for volunteer appreciation this year? Share your best ideas with other leaders below in the comments.

My first point is that it is OK (and even part of your leadership job) to think about issues like this. Your best defense is to guide folks into jobs that fit their skills and gifts. Deadline-phobic Mary may be a bad choice to chair your auction, but she might be perfect for recruiting new volunteers or running the teacher appreciation committee. It’s also a great idea to team the organizationally challenged with a more buttoned-up volunteer as cochairs.

If you find yourself with a solo chairperson who is dropping balls, then you do need to take some action. The best tactic is to find a willing volunteer with complementary skills and bring her onto the team. You don’t have to force the new volunteer into a cochair role or depose the current leader (the credit doesn’t matter, and the drama isn’t worth it), but you do want to subtly find ways to add the skills that are missing to the event you need completed.

For too many groups, the struggling leader means weeks or months of behind-the-scenes griping and then a disappointing final result. Leaders step in — nicely, when they can — to help find solutions before it’s too late.

We have lots of resources for building leadership skills on ptotoday.com; a couple of my favorites are “Empowering Committee Chairs” and “Are You a Leader or a Manager?“

The article paints this picture of Moms who go waaay past balanced in their volunteering to the point where they are causing harm to their family lives and even their personal well-being. Does that happen? Absolutely. We’ve written about volunteering that goes too far many times on this site.

My problem with the article is in the conclusions. Reading, one would think that the only solution to over-volunteering is going completely cold turkey. One of the moms celebrated in the article won’t even let her husband write a check to support a school fundraiser? Really? She went from running about everything in the school to attending nothing, supporting nothing and (obviously) volunteering not at all? That’s the solution?

How about balance? Millions of parents do a great job leading parent groups in a balanced way or finding a way to volunteer or support the school that fits their lifestyle. I can name you 200 moms and dads at my kids’ school who work full-time but who have found a way to chaperone one field trip or help with the weekend school basketball program or solicited some donations for the school auction. That much more common experience doesn’t even get a mention in this article. Ludicrous.

My biggest objection is to the writer not mentioning the decades of research that makes a compelling case for the value of parent involvement at schools. My kids do better. The other kids at school do better. The school as a whole does better when the school has higher degrees of broad parent involvement. To read the Times story is to think these Moms who have completely opted out are some kind of heroes. They’re not villains for opting out (sounds like they had trouble finding balance any other way), but the story potentiallly does real harm implying that zero connection to school is the right recipe.

I know there are folks in this world who live by extremes. If they volunteer, they are going to be the greatest, most committed volunteer in history. And if they stop volunteering, boy-oh-boy are they ever going to stop volunteering. But don’t we expect our reporters to go beyond the extremes to where the real facts lie? This article takes a stereotype, find three examples to back it up and – voila! – school volunteering is only awful. The Times can and should do much better.

We spend a ton of time here at PTO Today talking about how PTO officers can thank their volunteers and appreciate their teachers. This week, we’d like to take some of that time and simply thank you for all you do for your school and the students and families.

I know it can be a thankless, tiring job. But it’s worth it; it really is. Because of your work, students are learning in a more welcoming environment and families are connecting with your school in ways that research tells us are extremely important. Great teachers are energized at just the right time by your support.

On behalf of all of those people who should be thanking you more and should see even more clearly the value of the work you’re doing — thank you!

From all of us at PTO Today, please have a wonderful Thanksgiving. You deserve it.

I bet you know a few of these moms and dads. They aren’t official leaders of your group, but they attend lots of your meetings and — more important — they almost always volunteer for your events and say yes when asked to help with almost any task.

You have your leaders who take on a ton of responsibility and also get a lot of credit. You have your outgoing volunteers who might help run one big event and everyone knows it. And then you have these quieter volunteers who simply work really hard under the radar.

Do you recognize these key parents? Or do you just thank your lucky stars that they exist and send them four more jobs to do? I hope it’s the former and not the latter. How you treat those volunteers says a lot about your group and about your prospects for recruiting more help. All the parents in school have eyes and see how your group works. If they see a few volunteers constantly working and running around, then those parents will be reluctant to volunteer themselves. They’ll rightfully worry about how they’ll be treated if they step up.

My advice: Do two things for those quiet volunteers. First, make efforts to thank them both publicly and privately for their key, understated contributions. Second, take pains not to take advantage of their reluctance to say no. The best groups spread the volunteering wide (and even cancel efforts if they can’t) rather than placing an undue burden on just a few.

Want some more volunteer insight? Check out these resources on ptotoday.com:

• 25 Ways To Catch and Keep Volunteers
• Treat Your Volunteers Right
• Care and Feeding of Key Volunteers