Several months into the school year, your PTA is probably not attracting as many new members as it was during the start of the school year. Now is a great time to assess how your membership recruitment has gone so far and plan to build your PTA membership. Here are some tips to help.

• You know who your PTA members are so far. Look at your membership and note who in your school community isn’t a PTA member? Is it teachers or staff? Are there any characteristics that the families not joining your PTA share? If so, what can you do to reach out to those families and make them feel welcome? What barriers might your PTA be putting up that discourages them from joining? Use PTA’s Diversity & Inclusion Toolkit to reach out to those families.
• Use an Illinois PTA ready-to-use membership program to get more people interested in joining your PTA. Build a Super Fan campaign around upcoming sports seasons or a Give the Gift of Membership campaign for the holiday season.
• Sign up for National PTA’s Local Leader Kit so you can receive the DIY Kit for Membership Growth for free. The DIY kit will walk you through how to target potential PTA members and build a membership pitch to share the value of PTA with them.
• Take advantage of the power of MemberHub. PTA members aren’t the only people who you can sign up on MemberHub. If you have non-members joining MemberHub and using it as a communication tool with everyone, those non-members will see more of all the great things your PTA is doing. And if you are offering PTA memberships through MemberHub, you have an easy way to get them to join.

Photo courtesy Nick Youngson and Alpha Stock Imagesunder Creative Commons License.

Membership is critical to your PTA’s success. Members become your PTA’s volunteers and leaders, but most importantly members, even those who never volunteer, are sending the message that what your PTA is doing is important for their child, for their family, and for their school. Here are five tips to help your PTA engage with families and boost your membership.

1. Build Your Brand:If people don’t know that your PTA exists or what your PTA does, they certainly won’t join. Make sure that your PTA is visible at school events, communicates regularly with all families in a variety of ways, and shares the good things your PTA does for their child. Be consistent with identifying PTA events and communications.
2. Target Your Recruitment:Not every member of your school community will join PTA for the same reason. The days when everyone would join the PTA simply because it was what you did are long gone. The message to recruit teachers will be different than the one to recruit families, and both will be different than the message to recruit community members or businesses. Use PTA’s customizable 10 ReasonsPDF flyersto reach out to each community.
3. Reach Out to Underrepresented Groups:PTA’s mission is to make every child’s potential a reality, and that mission is more easily served when everyone is at the table sharing ideas. But making the connection with some families in your school can be difficult if your PTA hasn’t been building those relationships already. Use PTA’s Diversity & Inclusion Toolkitand tips on how to engage with underrepresented groupsto help you start building those relationships now.
4. Use All Your Tools:Having the right tool for a job can make it go a lot easier, but if you never take that tool out of your toolbox, it might as well be a rock. PTA provides you with a wealth of resources to help you with membership, including National PTA’s Local Leader Kit(register here), Illinois PTA’s Leadership Resources(formerly the Local Unit Packet, register your officers through MemberHub to get access), and membership articles here at One Voice Illinois.
5. Have a Plan:When you register for National PTA’s Local Leader Kit, you’ll be sent a DIY Kit for Membership Growththat will walk you through the process of creating a membership plan specific to your PTA. You can also use Illinois PTA’s membership campaignsthroughout the year to recruit members.