PTO Today

Volunteer appreciation isn’t just for spring. Not at all. Sure, a well-organized, larger volunteer thank-you effort is great, but it’s actually way more important to build a year-round culture of thanks in your PTO or PTA.

The best thing is that the best thanks don’t need to be elaborate. Can you make it an expectation that your event chairpeople will write a quick email thank-you to helpers within a week after events? How about adding an “Our Volunteers Rock” section to your monthly newsletter? Or creating a bulletin board of photos of parents chipping in?

One tip: Always err on the side of thanking too many people. Far better to thank someone who maybe doesn’t deserve it than to withhold thanks from someone who does.

For more on volunteer appreciation, check out “Treat Your Volunteers Right” and “Care and Feeding of Key Volunteers“.

And while I’m at it — thanks to you for all the great work you’re doing this year.

Every year, there’s a whole new crop of parents at your school. Not all of them will want to become volunteers, but some will.

How those eager new parents are treated as school begins, as they attend their first meeting, and as they make their first suggestions will play a huge part in whether your group is able to add new energy to your team.

In my experience, almost every parent group says they really want more help. But do your actions match your words?

My column “A Tale of Two Volunteers” tries to capture the very real emotions around the new volunteer-old volunteer dynamic. You were once a new volunteer — how did you feel then? And as an experienced volunteer, how do you feel when your work is questioned? Understanding where those feelings come from is a big step in making your group a more effective melting pot of old and new.

We have several additional articles about making a good first impression on new parents, including:

• Do You Really Want Help?
• Orienting New Members
• Communication Tips for Better Involvement

Starting to think about back to school and getting parents involved? One of the best approaches I know of for increasing involvement is our 2 Hour Power pledge program.

Basically, you ask parents to pledge two hours of volunteering, any kind of volunteering, per semester or per year. And you make it clear that you’ll celebrate those two hours and not ask/badger/guilt them about doing more. For many parents, the reason they don’t volunteer is because they feel that volunteering once will send them down this super-volunteer path that they can’t escape from.

You want to make volunteering less scary for parents. And 2 Hour Power can help you do that. Plus you’ll get lots of two-hour time donations, which really add up. Even better, many of those folks will find that the volunteering wasn’t half bad and — even without you badgering — will sign up for more. Nice, right? I highly recommend you give the concept a try.

Our 2 Hour Power materials have lots of tools and know-how for executing a program like this. If you’re looking for more ideas for connecting with volunteers at back-to-school time, check out this article on welcoming new families.

Fairly soon, your group will be welcoming a whole new crop of parents to your school. Some small percentage of those parents will be excited to get involved with your group. How will you react to those parents?

Will you make it clear that their questions are tiresome? Will you hastily dismiss their “new” ideas (that you’ve had in the past) and discourage them?

I hope not, but that’s what a lot of us PTO and PTA old-timers tend to do (often unknowingly) when we first deal with these new parents. It’s a great way to turn off the fresh, enthusiastic volunteers you most need.

I tried to capture this dynamic — and also some of the mistakes that new parents make in jumping in too aggressively — in a column I wrote last year called “A Tale of Two Volunteers“. I think this is a great time of year to bring it back out. I hope you’ll share it with your fellow leaders as a reminder of the mistakes we should try to avoid this summer and next fall.

As the school year ends, please accept our thanks for all you’ve done (and all you will do) for your school and for the kids and families you serve.

If we must call this a “tip,” I guess the tip is don’t forget just how valuable this work you’re doing is. I know it can be frustrating and sometimes thankless and always time-consuming, but your school is a better place thanks to you. Great teachers teach in a better environment thanks to you. Tons of students find their school more welcoming and home-like because of you. Families have connections with school that they wouldn’t have except for you.

And that’s not just me talking. Volumes of research makes it clear that schools with higher levels of parent involvement serve all kids better. Well-run schools with talented teachers teaching the three R’s are great. Those same schools with folks like you making involvement happen are even better.

So on behalf of all those parents who should be thanking you (but who perhaps don’t know it or haven’t gotten around to it) — thanks! May your summer be filled with lazy pool days and no emergency calls from the principal about the mess you left in the gym or from volunteers mad about gluten in your cupcakes.

Have seen a good amount of web chatter about this recent New York Times piece on a California district proposing mandatory parent volunteering for all 13,000 of its school families.

Thankfully, most of the reaction has seen this for the completely off-target proposal that it is. Here’s Larry Ferlazzo’s reaction, as an example.

You can guess my take. This simply isn’t the way to engage parents. Whether it’s a district, a school or a local PTO or PTA, growing involvement always, always, always starts with serving parents. This proposal is just the opposite, and is destined to fail. Folks don’t become real partners (raving fans, highly engaged… you name it) because you force them to do so. They become highly engaged because it becomes clear that your district or school or PTO or PTA is a great place to get engaged. They understand the value; they’re valued; they’re served.

I love the fact that this district gets just how important involvement is. And I even love pledge programs and the like (like our 2 Hour Power involvement pledge) to try and get as many parents as possible connected. But it has to be welcoming. It has to be positive. And it definitely has to be voluntary. This is just a flawed approach.

Interested in your thoughts…

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!