Ask Membership! Monday

shutterstock_116859331The National PTA membership team answers your questions about membership recruitment, retention, and engagement every month.

Dear PTA Membership,

What can I do to help my PTA keep its members? We keep some each year, but we lose just as many. How can we stop losing members?

Please help!

Maria H. – Miami, FL

 

Hello Maria,

Did you know it’s easier to keep a PTA member than gain a new one? It’s true. Membership statistics show that you have to put more effort in recruiting a new member than asking an existing member to return.

Membership retention is not about sending a letter once a year to current PTA members asking them to return. Retention starts from the first day you recruit a new member! Here are some quick steps to help you retain members from year-to-year.

  • Encourage engagement now! – Ask new members to get involved with your PTA right away. Welcome them to your PTA by inviting them to an upcoming meeting or asking how they wish to share their skills/talents.
  • Provide useful resources – New members want to know how their PTA membership can help them. Provide tools and resources to help their children reach their potential. Take a survey of your PTA members to learn if your PTA provides relevant tools and resources for your school and community.
  • Keep in touch! – PTA members want to be knowledgeable about their children, school, and community. Keep them informed about events that affect their child. Connect a new PTA member with a returning member to form a “tag-team”, keeping new members up to date on PTA happenings. Email and call members on a regular basis with news they need to know.
  • Ask for renewals – Remind members of the successes your PTA has achieved throughout the year and ask for membership renewal. Sharing your achievements helps PTA members stay connected, understand the value of PTA membership and stay energized! Use phone, email, and social media to ask for renewals. View steps to plan for membership renewal here and download a sample renewal letter.

Remember, successful PTA membership retention leads to a strong membership base, strong school and community ties, as well as a strong pool of potential PTA leaders.  Keep your members empowered, strong, and responsible with engagement that starts on day one!

Best wishes for strong PTA membership,

The PTA Membership Team

 

Have a question for the PTA membership team? Email National PTA’s membership marketing manager at jlindsey@pta.org. Type “Ask Membership! Monday” in the subject line, tell us your question, and include your first and last name, name of your local PTA, and city and state. If your question is selected, it will be answered here in the Ask Membership! Monday blog.

Joy Lindsey is membership marketing manager for National PTA. 

 

Ask Membership! Monday

MembershipMondayThe National PTA membership team answers your questions about membership recruitment, retention, and engagement every month.

Dear PTA Membership,

I am the PTA membership chair at my son’s elementary school. I’ve been trying really hard to increase our PTA’s meeting attendance, but nothing really seems to work. We hold meetings monthly and I try to ask everyone I know to attend, but the same 5 or 6 people show up all the time. How can I get more people to come to the meetings? We really have a great school and I know they want to be more involved!

Sincerely,
Cynthia D. – Lexington, KY

Dear Cynthia,

Getting new faces to attend your meetings isn’t always easy, but here are four quick tips to help you boost your attendance.

  1. Make your meeting date and time visible using physical announcements. Placing PTA posters with your next PTA meeting date, location, and time in highly visible areas parents frequent when visiting your child’s school (next to the front office doorway, school auditorium, and cafeteria areas) is a great way to keep your invitation in front of parents, teachers, and school staff.  Gain the school’s permission to post PTA posters. Local PTA presidents may check with your State PTA office to get a poster if you don’t have one.
  2. Share your PTA meeting on social media. You’re probably already a “friend” or “follower” of many people at your child’s school or in the community. Ask others to share your meeting announcement and link to current online content that will be the focus of your upcoming meeting. For more information on how to connect and engage Today’s PTA member using social media, click here.
  3. Place PTA flier announcements in students’ backpacks. Backpack fliers are still a number one vehicle for distributing messages to parents. Work with your school’s principal to gain permission to do this.
  4. Ask each person attending to bring another attendee. Double your efforts by asking each PTA attendee to bring one additional person with them from their home, the school, or the community.

Best wishes,
The PTA Membership Team

 

Have a question for the PTA membership team? Email National PTA’s membership marketing manager at jlindsey@pta.org. Type “Ask Membership! Monday” in the subject line, tell us your question, and include your first and last name, name of your local PTA, and city and state. If your question is selected, it will be answered here in the Ask Membership! Monday blog.


Joy Lindsey is membership marketing manager for National PTA.  

Membership Monday: Seizing the Membership Moment!

Mem_MondayI grabbed my coat while heading out the door to work with the weather bug on my TV set registering a chilling 46 degrees. It’s the morning of the gubernatorial election in Virginia. The local news reported this would be a close race with a large voter turnout, so I squeezed in a few extra minutes to my morning routine to go cast my vote.

We’re all familiar with what it’s like to change one thing in our morning routine and having our entire morning drive almost end in chaos. Yet, I was determined to make it to the polls super early to zoom past my neighbors and avoid the long lines. Turns out somebody else had already beaten me there! As I turned the corner to search for a parking space, I saw four smiling individuals bundled in scarfs, hats, and jackets at a table draped in PTA’s Every Child. One Voice.

Say hello to Samuel W. Tucker’s PTA unit members from left to right: Lisa Hammond –Treasurer; Daria Dillard – President; Pam Dennunzio – Secretary; and Al Luna – Volunteer Coordinator. They were ready to start the day engaging our local community with answers about PTA and volunteer opportunities while taking in a few fundraising dollars. With an historical voting turnout pending, they couldn’t have picked an easier way to gain great exposure and connect the dots with our community by sharing PTA’s mission.

If you’re a PTA leader looking for ways to host membership recruitment events and engagement with your school and community, click here. And to the 254 members strong at Samuel W. Tucker’s PTA unit comprised of parents, teachers, and school staff, we’d like to say “Hats off to you for a job well done”!  (Or should we say, “Hats On”?? Wow, it was cold.)