Tennessee PTA Membership – The POWER of PTA!
Our 2023-2025 Membership Theme
“A New Day with your PTA!”
What is the POWER of PTA? It is its members. Every membership counts, numbers matter and gives power when your PTA goes before a principal, school board, or city council to speak on behalf of its members. What does your membership give you? It gives you POWER, power in numbers!
Not currently a member of PTA? No Problem!
Join your local PTA, council or Join Tennessee PTA’s unit – Join TALL – Tennessee At-Large Local Unit
Who should be a PTA member? Everyone!
PTA Members should be anyone who cares about ALL children. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, care givers, extended family members, community member, business leaders, religious leader, Past PTA leaders, and elected officials should join PTA.
Why do we need members? Because without Members we cannot see that the Mission of PTA is fulfilled.
With more members our voice speaking on behalf of all children is louder. Advocating can be on a local level such as requesting an additional crossing guard, or on a state or national level such as asking for adequate funding
Why won’t people join our PTA?
The number one reason people don’t join is that they were never asked!
Second they are afraid they are required to do something.
I can’t Join PTA because I work full time!
No Problem
I can’t join PTA because I can’t be at school all day!
No Problem
I can’t join PTA because I cannot fundraise!
No Problem
I can’t join PTA because I can’t attend the meetings!
No Problem
I can’t join PTA because I have no free time!
No Problem
You ask how we can say No Problem to all these? Because it is your membership and you do with it what you can. Being a member means you value PTA and the Mission it stands for. Your membership counts, even if you cannot do anything but join.
Unit and Council Membership Chairs Information: Councils are responsible for collecting all their council dues. Please invoice your local units.
Local Units- Members must be added to Givebacks before you submit payment to Tennessee PTA.
Find explanation of using alternative remittance form here. Be sure to visit the Membership Reporting page for deadline information and instructions. Go to Givebacks to set up membership and to pay by bank draft.
REMINDER YOU MUST HIT THE PAY BUTTON BEFORE TENNESSEE PTA RECIEVES YOUR MEMBERSHIP DUES THROUGH Givebacks.
The Membership Quick Reference Guide and Membership eLearning course can be found on National PTA’s website and are very useful tools.
Theresa Shaw, Chair, Membership Committee, (email)
PTA FOR YOUR CHILD: MEMBERSHIP CAMPAIGN TOOLKIT AND CHECKLIST
The PTA For Your Child messaging and collateral materials are designed to support your current membership outreach strategy via the activities and communication channels you are already using to recruit new members and renewals. To kick-start your planning, we’ve outlined a campaign implementation checklist for you to build into the first 30 days of annual recruitment and to use throughout the year.
- View the Training Webinar: Participate in the PTA For Your Child membership campaign training webinar for further details about the campaign. This training webinar is available on National PTA’s website.
- Read Through the Campaign Toolkit: Thoroughly review this toolkit and accompanying PowerPoint templates so you can understand how to incorporate the campaign messaging and visuals into all membership communications for your school community.
- Inform and Educate the Executive Board: Share and review the membership campaign with the full executive board.
- Update Your Website: Update the language about membership and add a clickable JOIN NOW button on your PTA website using the graphics provided with this toolkit. This should link directly to your member registration page.
- Make Joining Easy: Add membership language and a JOIN PTA link to all social media platforms, and hyperlink social media images directly to your member registration page.
- Create a Membership Communications Schedule: Develop a weekly communications schedule of 1-3 social media posts and/or listserv posts per week in the first 30 days.
- Vary the Visuals: Use a variety of the campaign’s social media images, alternating the PTA For Your Child and “No Wrong Way To PTA” images to engage followers.
- Directly Solicit Families: Send out the “Sample Membership Ask Email/Letter” and then follow-up with those who join using the “Sample Thank You Email/Letter.”
- Use Consistent Branding: Clearly and consistently brand all membership appeals and relevant PTA events with the campaign visuals. This includes using the campaign hashtags in all social media posts related to membership recruitment.
- Ask, Ask, Ask: Don’t stop soliciting members after the school year is underway. Be sure to include messaging and the benefits and impact of PTA membership in communications throughout the year.
Click here to download a PDF version of this toolkit.