Make Your Life Easier: Tips and Resources for Your Group

1,600 downloadable files —Don’t reinvent the wheel! PTOtoday.com/filesharing

2,000 articles on PTO and PTA challenges

8,000 questions and answers. Ask your own at PTOtoday.com/answers.

Message boards, clip art gallery, and lots of other resources.

Active Facebook community of 55,000 PTO and PTA leaders. facebook.com/ptotoday

Pinterest: 67 boards and 6,000 pins.

Parent Involvement

Building parent involvement should be your number one focus. The more parents you get involved, the easier it will be to organize events and raise funds.

TIP: Don’t forget to ask people to participate. Sending out a flyer that lists your meeting dates or says “volunteers needed” isn’t enough.

The more personal the invitation, the more likely people are to say yes.

Parent Involvement

This 2-minute video describes the benefits of parent involvement. It’s meant for you to show to parents.

Resource: Parent Involvement Matters

PTOtoday.com/video

Parent Involvement

A downloadable flyer about the benefits of getting involved.

Resource: 10 Reasons To Get Involved

PTOtoday.com/parent-involvement

Parent Involvement

Pledge program that urges parents to volunteer for two hours a semester. Very effective in building your volunteer base.

Resource: 2 Hour Power

PTOtoday.com/2hourpower

Parent Involvement

Subscription-based online software designed specifically for PTOs and PTAs

Resource: Volunteer Manager

PTOtoday.com/volunteer-manager

Events That Sing

Great events take many different forms. The keys are organization, timeline, and enthusiasm (theirs and yours).

TIP: Ask for student input. Tap kids’ natural enthusiasm by asking what they think. Put together a simple survey to email to parents or to go out to classrooms.

(Middle school events in particular benefit from this.)

TIP: Take photos of your event setup to help you remember next time.

Events That SingResource: School Family Nights Kits

School Family Nights kits include a step-by-step planning guide, activity and/or theme ideas, a professionally designed poster, and more.

Family Movie Night: Tips, timeline, movie and theme ideas, and how to get a public viewing license.

Family Science Night: 20 different kid-friendly experiments that tie in with common curriculum standards.

Family Reading Night: Theme ideas, book suggestions, and ideas for guest readers.

PTOtoday.com/sfn

Do You Know Where Your Bylaws Are?

Bylaws are a key organizational document for your PTO. They tell you what offices you must fill, when to hold meetings, what constitutes a quorum, and more.

TIP: Find your bylaws

TIP: Read your bylaws

TIP: Revise your bylaws

Do You Know Where Your Bylaws Are?Resource: Sample Bylaws

You’ll find several sets on the ptotoday.com File Exchange.

Take what fits for your group. Copying is definitely allowed!

PTOtoday.com/bylaws-nonprofit

Do You Know Where Your Bylaws Are?Resource: PTO Startup Toolkit

The PTO Startup Toolkit walks you through all the steps of getting organized legally, from writing bylaws to attaining tax-exempt status from the IRS.

PTOtoday.com/pto-today-toolkits

Money Matters

The average parent group raises $20,000 a year.

TIP: The single most important financial control you can implement is to make sure at least two people are reviewing the bank statements each month.

No matter what your budget, it’s important to keep on top of your finances.

Money Matters

Resource: Treasurer’s Toolkit

Topics include budgeting, maintaining financial records, and conducting a financial review at the end of the year.

PTO Today’s Treasurer’s Toolkit walks your treasurer through all the important aspects of the job.

PTOtoday.com/pto-today-toolkits

Money Matters

Resource: Finance Manager

It makes tasks like budgeting, bank reconciliation, and creating reports a lot easier.

Finance Manager is a web-based software created by PTO Today specifically for PTOs and PTAs.

PTOtoday.com/finance-manager

For the Love of MeetingsPeople have a love/hate relationship with meetings.

They’re important, but they can be a time-waster and a bore.

TIP: Keep meetings to an hour or less— people are much more likely to return if meetings are organized and businesslike and socializing occurs before or after.

TIP: Let committees do the detail work and report back.

Don’t spend 20 minutes at a general meeting discussing the color scheme for the school dance.

For the Love of MeetingsResource: Robert’s Rules Cheat Sheet

PTOtoday.com/meetings-roberts-rules

For the Love of MeetingsResource: Customizable Meeting Announcements

PTOtoday.com/meetings-roberts-rules

For the Love of MeetingsResource: How To Take Meeting Minutes

PTOtoday.com/secretary

Say It Like You Mean It!

How you communicate with the school community can make a big difference. It’s important to be positive and to communicate a lot!

Your accomplishments are organizing a Family Science Night and purchasing new books for the library, not raising $6,000 at your last fundraiser.

TIP: Brag about your accomplishments. It’s important to tell people what you’ve done.

Say It Like You Mean It!

Use a variety of ways to communicate: Facebook, email, Twitter, texting, webpage, backpack express.

Find out what works for your parent community. Take a survey.

Say It Like You Mean It!

Parent Express email is a free email client specifically for PTOs and PTAs from PTO Today.

Resource: Parent Express Email

It makes creating and sending emails and newsletters easy.

PTOtoday.com/parentexpress

Say It Like You Mean It!Resource: PTO and PTA Clip Art Gallery

More than 500 clip art images, logos, and more.

PTOtoday.com/clipart

You are not alone! We’re here to help, advise, listen, and share.

Where To Find It

Find links to all of these resources, and this presentation, at

ptotoday.com/expo-extras.