How Your PTA Can Help With Fundraisers

PTAs are vital groups to accomplish school fundraising goals. There’s just one problem - motivating the members of the Parent Teacher Association to participate can be a herculean task. How can you get people involved without being overbearing about it? 

The Parent Teacher Association (PTA)  is a powerful tool to raise valuable funds for your school. That’s assuming you can actually motivate people to participate. Therein lies the challenge.

Your goal is to not only encourage parents to participate more in the PTA but also to motivate them to help with fundraisers, both for charity and for your school’s own budget. The two goals are closely related to one another. First, we’ll talk about overall motivation.

The most important piece of advice I have for you is to make it as simple as possible to get involved. Many people don’t actually know how to join the PTA at their school. Some aren’t even aware that one exists. As such, you should take a few measures to address this.

Feature the following information both on your school’s website and in posters around the facility:

• Contact details for members of the PTA
• Photos of the chair and any other important members
• A list of the different ways people can be involved
• A call for parents to get in touch
• Information on why they should join - being more involved with their children’s education, helping the school thrive, and meeting other parents and teachers. 

With the necessary information made public, your next step is the recruitment process. Use a tool like Classlist to set up a digital community through which people can communicate with one another, collaborate on events, and coordinate with one another on volunteer shifts and schedules. I recommend setting up a regular newsletter, sent out via either physical mail or email. 

This newsletter should cover all the ins and outs of the PTA. Most importantly, it should celebrate any fundraising milestones and goals. Take steps to specifically call out the most noteworthy contributions of parents and staff. Show that you appreciate the work they’re doing and their contributions to your fundraising efforts. 

Last but not least, tap into the members of your PTA for fundraising ideas. Make it clear that as long as someone is willing to take the lead on a concept, they have the full support of the PTA for the entire course of the fundraiser. This atmosphere of collaboration and the knowledge that anyone can meaningfully contribute will serve as a powerful motivator for people to get involved.

Beyond that, it’s a matter of messaging. What does it achieve for the school? For students and teachers? For the community at large? 

Give people a reason to get excited about each event, and an idea of what their contributions mean to their children and peers.