I can't imagine charging or even asking for dues. We never have as long as I can remember. We spend enough money on everything else at school in these trying economic times. When it's like pulling teeth to even get a small minority of parents to join, why would I want to scare them off with dues. As far as voting is concerned, if you make two consecutive meetings in a school year you can vote on whatever is being voted on. We vote with our presence and participation. We only get 1% of our parents/teachers to attend regular PTO meetings as it is!
What is your school population? What fundraiser did you run that earned you 18,000? Was that gross? Curious as we are having fundraiser issues at our school.
We charge $10 for dues for each family, and they get a directory for that. We raise over $2,000 each year that way, so that would be a big chunk of money down the drain. The one thing parents expect to pay I think is dues and as long as they get their directories, they don't mind.
We used to have advertising support the directory, but since the ad salespeople were myself and another mom, we did away with it because we just didn't have the energy to pound the pavement anymore.
This is my last year in elementary school. I'll be glad to move on to the middle school. I'll happily pay my $25 for the directory and the programs they have and not have to pay another dime for fundraising.
Tim, back when I was the co-president of the Cheltenham Elementary school PTO and I read your original article I brought this issue to my board and advocated for changing "what we'd always done." They thought it was worth a try, so we went to charging a fee only for the directory alone (a reasonable fundraiser) and presenting membership as something automatic for everyone. Since I am no longer at the school, I don't know if it has had any repercussions on the money they brought in, but it felt good moving us to the model that ALL families were considered members whether or not they put in $10.
Our group tired the no dues for a couple of years but people were so used to sending in their dues it didn't really matter. I don't think they read the membership form close enough to see that dues were simply voluntary. We reinstated the membership dues and raised between $2-3K for a school of 600 students. Many working parents choose to make an "armchair donation" at this time as well as other parents donating more than the requested amount.
