Serving
Riverside County
Membership
Basic Membership RemittancesOMDR Membership Training
Webinar Trainings from National PTA
The October schedule will be released in the upcoming weeks. Here is the link for the registration site, http://registration.intercall.com/go/nationalpta.
Have You Asked Anyone to Join Today?
Attracting new members and retaining current ones are among the most important duties of a PTA. A thriving membership doesn’t just happen; it requires good planning and year-round attention. Now that school is back in session, PTAs everywhere are celebrating September as PTA Membership Month by recruiting members at school events and in the community.
PTAs should be encourage continued membership recruitment efforts throughout the year. Every PTA event is an opportunity to recruit new members, and every volunteer is a potential PTA member or supporter! Successful membership drives are essential for bringing new volunteers and excitement to our local members, but membership efforts need to continue past September. Remember, the number one reason that people don’t join is that they were never asked.
Encourage your district, region, council, and local leaders to use materials and resources provided from state and National PTA to recruit and retain more members. In addition to the Membership Month materials, a variety of materials were also included in the Back-to-School kit mailed earlier this summer. Don’t forget to take advantage of PTA’s human resources either. Field service representatives, extension liaisons, and minority outreach specialists are available to assist in reaching your membership goals.
Ask How Units Used Membership Marketing Tools
Membership Month kits with a membership recruitment manual and a CD-ROM containing customizable marketing materials were sent recently to local units. Please encourage your local units to let us know how they used these templates and tools this back-to-school season. Not only will this information help us to improve the materials we provide, but also survey participants will be entered into a drawing to win a $250 American Express gift card. If a PTA has not received their kit, they may download the materials at www.pta.org/marketing or contact the Information Center at (800) 307-4782 or info@pta.org.
Once local units have completed their Membership Month campaign, have them visit www.pta.org/mm-survey to give us feedback and share their experiences. Surveys must be completed by October 15 to be eligible for the gift card.
Above two article reprinted with permission from PTA Partners in Leadership, A monthly newsletter for state PTA leaders, September 2006, a National PTA E-newsletter.
Membership is the heart of PTA. Your membership dues make you a member of the largest child advocacy group in the world. The 23rd District PTA of Riverside County stands united as an advocate for children and youth. The 23rd District PTA oversees and guides over two hundred and forty units (schools) within Riverside County. As a member of a PTA at the unit level, you also enjoy membership in the District, State and National PTA. To view some of the benefits associated with your PTA membership you can go to the California State PTA website at www.capta.org or you can visit the National PTA website at www.pta.org.
Membership Guidelines for Chairman
Membership Chairman can purchase membership envelopes from their Council Membership Chairman. The cost is $10.00 per 500 envelopes. As District Membership Director, I sell envelopes to Councils and they in turn sell them to their units. Out of Council units can contact me directly to purchase envelopes.
Membership cards are issued to Council Membership Chairman in early July. There is no charge to units or councils for membership cards. More cards can be given to a council membership chairman after a remittance for membership dues collected have been sent through channels to District.
Once membership money is turned in at the unit level, the membership chairman and at least one other person must count the money and record it on a Cash Count Verification form. There must be two signatures on the form. The money is then submitted to the unit Treasurer who will deposit it in the unit bank account. The Unit Treasurer will then issue a check to the Council for the per capita dues collected. This will be the number of members times the sum of the Council portion of dues (amount varies by council), District portion of dues, ( $0.50), State portion of dues ($1.25), National portion of dues ($1.75).
The Council Treasurer will then submit all dues collected from all units in the Council with a remittance form for 23rd District PTA. In addition to the NCR form, you must also submit the breakdown listing each unit and the number of memberships sold.
To be considered a “unit in good standing,” a unit must have at least fifteen members, have current, up to date by-laws and have paid their insurance premium by the specified due date. Do not put your Charter in jeopardy; remit monies through the proper channels in a timely fashion.
Please try to issue Membership Cards to your members as soon as possible. For some people, not getting a membership card this year will mean that they won’t bother joining next year. Please do not lose next year’s member because you did not give them a card for their membership this year.
Membership Lists:
As a requirement of the IRS for our “non-profit” status, all units must maintain an up to date membership list. In addition to the IRS requirement, the California State PTA, and therefore all of its units, is part of a pilot program to gather the names of all six million PTA members world wide. Our part in this pilot program is to keep the unit membership lists in a format that can be converted to a national data base. All unit membership chairman are asked to use an excel spreadsheet format as outlined below. Units can then e-mail their list to their Council who in turn should e-mail them to the District Membership Director.
FORMAT FOR MEMBERSHIP LISTS:
NPTA ID # / Council Name / Unit Name / Last Name / First Name / Street Address / City / Zip / Telephone / E mail Address
Not every member will provide all of the information listed above. Just enter the information received for each member. Assure your members that these lists are for National PTA to meet the IRS requirement for its membership list and that their names will not be sold or given out to any other organization. Members can benefit by opting to participate in the National PTA’s electronic newsletter. They will also have access to the PTA website with information on membership benefits such as discounts at retailers like Barnes and Nobles or Kinko’s.
Tips for Marketing PTA: Where Are All the Men?
Attend a typical PTA meeting and you will see more than eight women for every man there. Why?
That question, and the question of how to encourage more men to be active PTA members, prompted National PTA to conduct a survey in fall 2004 regarding male involvement in PTA. The goal of the survey was to discover what keeps males from getting involved in PTA, why they do get involved, and what PTAs can do to keep them engaged once they’ve joined.
The findings from this survey are an important step toward enlisting more support from a group that is critical not just to the success of PTA, but to the success of children, too. Studies have shown that students perform better in school when both parents are involved in their education.
Almost 2,700 men took the survey, 98 percent of them PTA members. The 226 women who took the survey only responded to questions about demographics. Because of the large number of respondents, the results should reflect the general male PTA member’s opinion.
Following are key findings from the survey, as well as tips from National PTA on how to address each issue.
Sixty-eight percent of male respondents said that they were not asked to join PTA any differently than female members were. Respondents believe that approaching men differently would have a positive impact on membership, though. Forty-five percent of respondents indicated that special advertising campaigns aimed at fathers would help, and 37 percent said that having a male PTA member ask a prospective male member would be beneficial.
Tip: Use messaging and advertising aimed at males. Emphasize that men are welcome and encouraged to join.
The number one reason for men to be involved in PTA, cited by 81 percent of respondents, is to “work to improve the school for the benefit of my child/children.”
Tip: Make the membership pitch relevant to males by indicating that the man’s child/children will benefit from his involvement in PTA.
Spouses are a big influence on male participation in PTA. More than 90 percent of male respondents claimed that their spouse is a PTA member as well. In many narrative responses, husbands indicated that their wives had asked them to join.
Tip: Ask the women in your PTA to invite the men in their children’s lives to join PTA.
When asked what they believe keeps men from joining PTA, 71 percent of male respondents said “lack of time.” The second most often mentioned reason was “not being asked” (cited by 49 percent), followed by “PTA is a women’s organization” (cited by 28 percent).
Tip: Create more volunteer opportunities and special events aimed at dads/males. When asked what types of events men participate in, the top responses were fundraisers, back-to-school events, school carnivals, and attending PTA meetings.
These simple suggestions could dramatically influence male involvement in your PTA, increasing membership and your PTA’s ability to help children in your community and around the country.
National PTA has prepared new content on its website that specifically addresses father involvement (www.pta.org/dads) and recruiting and retaining male PTA members (www.pta.org/getmeninvolved). The resources include a full report on the survey results, a list of “Top 10 Ways to Involve Men in PTA,” information on membership recruitment techniques, and a sample local survey to gauge a local PTA’s male involvement opportunities. National PTA will send a letter to all local unit presidents that shares key survey results and informs them of these resources.
Reprinted from the February 2005 edition of the National PTA Field Service Newsletter