One of the great opportunities at the Illinois PTA Convention is to attend workshops by state board members that provide you with new ideas and help you to be a better PTA leader. Illinois PTA Membership Marketing Director Julie Holdeman presented two great workshops on growing your PTA’s membership.

The first, Planning a Year-Round Membership Campaign, focused on how to get people to join your PTA throughout the year, including right now at the end of the school year. The second, Analyzing Your Membership for Retention and Growth, covered how to use the information you have on your existing members to help you recruit new members. Below are combined highlights from both workshops.

The Importance of Membership

Membership is critical at the local level. Without members, you PTA will struggle to find leaders and volunteers. But beyond that, PTA membership can help to create a sense of community within a school, bringing families, teachers, administrators, and students together as a team. PTA membership at the local level also helps to support the mission of the PTA as a whole, providing a larger voice for the Illinois PTA in Springfield and the National PTA in Washington, DC.

Getting Started

Just about everyone, even small kids, recognize the Nike swoosh, McDonald’s golden arches, or the iconic Coke bottle shape. Why? Because those companies have worked hard for decades to make those visual references connect to their brand, and they do it consistently year after year. Your PTA has a brand too—it’s the PTA logo with the “Every child, one voice.” tagline underneath it. There’s even a song to go with that branding.

Make sure that the PTA logo is on everything that your PTA sends out. Be sure to follow National PTA’s branding and web guidelines. You can also customize your PTA logo to include your PTA’s name above the standard logo. Make sure that the logo that your PTA uses is consistent with everything you send out.

Branding can also be an important part of your membership campaign. By choosing a theme for your campaign, you can create a visual identity that you can work off of throughout the year. The Illinois PTA membership page has three ready-to-use campaigns, complete with flyers you can customize to your PTA.

Particularly relevant right now is the “Thanks for the Memories” campaign. You can make a pitch to the families in your school that if they’ve enjoyed the PTA events and resources throughout the school year, they can show their thanks with a PTA membership. An added benefit you can include is that now at the end of the school year, they can join PTA to show their support without fear of being asked to volunteer (this year, at least).

Who Can Join?

Who can join PTA? Anyone who is interested in supporting the activities of the PTA and its mission. That means that your PTA shouldn’t focus just on the families and teachers at your school. Consider reaching out to extended families, since grandparents are just as likely as parents to want their grandchild’s school to have a strong PTA. Ask your superintendent and school board members to join, as well as your mayor, city council members, and other local officials. Don’t forget to ask business leaders to join as well. Strong schools are the bedrock of every community, and their membership can show their support for the schools in the community.

Analyzing Your Membership Data

Keep track of your members in a spreadsheet. Beyond their name and e-mail address, other information you might want to collect includes:

  • Address and phone number(s), possibly for inclusion in a PTA directory (with permission)
  • Whether they are new or returning members
  • Whether they were referred by an existing member
  • What grades and classrooms their children are in
  • What month they joined in
  • Are they a parent, grandparent, teacher, administrator, business member, or community member

All of this information can be helpful in growing your membership. If you have a significant number of members from last year that didn’t join again this year, you can plan a targeted campaign aimed at getting members to keep their streak alive by joining again. For those that don’t rejoin, you can contact them to find out why and what your PTA could do to bring them back.

By knowing what grades and classrooms a member’s children are in, you can find areas where your PTA is not recruiting well. Are kindergarten membership numbers down? Make sure you focus on explaining the importance of PTA to your school and sharing all of the things your PTA does for children at the school. Are some classrooms or grades underrepresented compared to others? Perhaps a membership competition between classes or grades with a popcorn party or other school-approved reward would help.

If you know when a member joined, you can evaluate how your membership activities have performed. Was a campaign successful or not? Are there areas where you could improve a campaign, or did it just not work at all? Without data about your members, you can’t answer the questions you may have about how your membership efforts are working or identify where opportunities for growth exist.

Membership Comes With Benefits

Some people want to know what’s in it for them if they join the PTA. That’s where member benefits come into play. National PTA provides member benefits, as does the Illinois PTA. For example, if you are working to grow the number of grandparents joining your PTA, you might want to share the 15% discount off an AARP membership that they can get as a PTA member.

Member benefits don’t have to come from just the National PTA or Illinois PTA. Your PTA can offer them as well. Provide discounts to PTA members at PTA events. Offer a drawing from members for a VIP parking space and front row seats to a PTA or school event. Have drawings for a free yearbook or spirit wear. Plan a membership appreciation night that everyone can attend, but that PTA members get in free (e.g., at a local roller skating rink). Allow people to join your PTA that night to take advantage of the benefit.

Reaching Out to Businesses

A local business or vendor can become a sponsor of your PTA through a business membership. Your PTA will need to determine what amount to charge for a business membership as well has how many actual PTA membership cards go with it (usually one, since most businesses just want to support the PTA and not vote at PTA meetings). You can also order business member window clings from the Illinois PTA. Be sure to note on your business outreach materials that purchase of a PTA business membership is not an endorsement of that business by the PTA but is rather a statement of support for the PTA by the business. IRS rules prohibit non-profit organizations like PTA from endorsing businesses.

Membership Resources

National PTA provides marketing materials in both English and Spanish that you can use to promote PTA membership. Additional membership and marketing materials are available in the online Back-to-School Kit. The Illinois PTA membership page has additional resources, including three ready-to-use membership campaigns that you can customize to your PTA. The Local Unit Packet, sent to your PTA president at the beginning of the school year, has a folder full of membership materials as well. Make sure your officers for next year are registered this spring to ensure your PTA receives the new Local Unit Packet when it comes out later this summer. Finally, if you have any questions about membership or marketing your PTA, Illinois PTA Membership Marketing Director Julie Holdeman will help you in any way that she can.