We've held membership campaigns in the past, but, after reading your article, thought better of it. Why spend the time for so little return?
Instead, we self-printed a school year calendar, and sold it, along with a fridge magnet for $10. It was a labor of love, but got more people engaged.
We charge dues to offset: directory, school geared envelopes and excuse pads, general business expenses, weekly e-blast sent to members and web-site costs to all members. It is very helpful and therefore doesn't eat into our profits from our other fundraisers. It provides us with a minimal working capital. We charge $30.00. This next school year we will actually charge a late fee if you join after a certain date. We are trying to get our directory our earlier. We have 95% od school families as members. And for the past several years have been able to gift to our tow schools K-8 approx $30,000 each in school gifts and our cultural arts program.
In the past we charged $3 and there wasn't really any benefit to paying that at all, just a membership card that most stuck in their wallet and forgot about. This was my first year as president and this year we decided to give them something for their money. We charged $5 for the membership and they received a Sonic Value Card. If you have a Sonic restaurant in your area these are great cards. Sonic will give you as many cards as you want for no charge. They have buy 1 get 1 free coupons on them, we bought printer labels and typed the school name and the members name on them and stuck them to the outside of the card. I would like to look into many more great ideas to up our Membership drive next year. I'm sure I'll find a great many on here.
We still don't tie the membership to anything and I'm not sure if that would help or hurt. Or volunteer % is pretty low as it is and I wouldn't want to turn any parent away from helping at an event over a membership fee.
"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
We don't charge dues. Never have, Never will. It is against our by-laws. Every paper sent out states, as a parent you are a member. It helps get new parents involved when it fits their lives.
That said, we are a small charter school, where the parents give about 5000% more than we could ever raise in dues especially since we have an extremely diverse ecomonic backround in our students.
We do have a "No Fun" Fundraiser, where parents are able to just give a donation. We get all kinds of donations from $1.00 to $500 and it actually is our best fundraiser with the least work. Normally we raise between $3000-$6000 a year.
We do charge dues. Every year the PTO gives each homeroom funds to help pay for the cost of the classroom parties. Every student receives the benefit of this. Our membership dues is allocated directly to the homeroom funds. We usually break even. We let parents know that the membership fee is completely optional. It does not preclude anyone from participating in PTO events.
At the end of the last school year, as I prepared for my first year as president, I started reading all the PTO Today info on dropping membership dues and decided to come up with a plan to present the idea to our executive board.
I ran the financial demographics of our school, surrounding zip codes, and our free lunch program numbers. I figured I could prove my point by illustrating the local economy and comparing it with our dwindling volunteer list. I prepared a presentation along with copies of PTO Today articles in support of dropping the dues. In addition I submitted a plan to request school supply donations in place of membership dues. I pointed out that we raised only 550.00 the year before and could easily cover that loss with profits from more food sales at family events.
Well, most of the board supported the idea before I presented it in our first executive board meeting of the school year, but only four of us voted in favor of motion when it came to a vote. Fear of change seemed to be the only reason for not dropping the dues. The concept seemed to be too extreme for their comfort levels. They did not have anything to back up their positions except for saying we needed the money.
The teachers and admin members of our board were most opossed to the idea. As a parent and member of the local comunity I just don't think this group is in touch with the financial and cultural elements of our school families. I tried to show them the facts with the information I presented, but they did not see what was so clear to me.
Wendy
If I am voted in as president next year I will be resubmitting a proposal to drop the dues.
