Mrs. Conn is right, you just can't support political parties or candidates. We helped get our referendum passed by Flyering everywhere we could and getting signs made for people to put on their lawns. Our school was also in bad need of major repairs and overcrowded. The weekend before the vote we also went out to our towns main shopping hub and handed out flyers and talked to folks. This helped because we reached out to a lot of young parents whose children will be in school a few years from now. Many of them had no idea about the upcoming vote. You can also get permission to get flyers out at your local nursery schools. Those parents are very supportive as the children entering the schools in future years will benefit greatly.
We did however discuss our intentions to back our referendum at a PTO meeting and held a vote to make sure we had the majority of the parents behind this thing before we spent money on it.
Go back and read IRS guidelines of 501's. If you are a nonprofit (501c3?), your PTO can support anything other than a political CANDIDATE. You may sink your money into supporting any cause you like.
I need a quick answer please! Our newly organized PTO is supporting the upcoming referendum to repair our ailing school buildings. Can the local units (all under the big PTO umbrella) each purchase signs and buttons to support the referendum? Would it be better to send the money from each local unit to the district PTO and then have the PTO pay for the materials? Is it against our ability to support the referendum financially at all? Please advise!
