My Tip of the Week: Keep Track of Potential Volunteers

With school opening up, do you have a plan to connect all those parents who say they want to help with actual volunteer opportunities? For too many groups, the plan is a nice Open House speech followed by a sign-up sheet that winds up in the back of a file somewhere. Two months later, the leaders of those groups are frustrated by a lack of volunteers and a whole bunch of parents are wondering why the cliquey PTO doesn't call. Ugh.

by Tim Sullivan

10/27/2021

With

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h school opening up, do you have a plan to connect all those parents who say they want to help with actual volunteer opportunities?

For too many groups, the plan is a nice Open House speech followed by a sign-up sheet that winds up in the back of a file somewhere. Two months later, the leaders of those groups are frustrated by a lack of volunteers and a whole bunch of parents are wondering why the cliquey PTO doesn't call. Ugh.

With that in mind, here are two tips this week -- both regarding getting and keeping lots of new volunteers.

  1. Do you have a well-done volunteer interest sheet for your parents? More than just "can you help," a well-done survey asks about interest areas and best times. We have a sample volunteer interest form in our File Exchange area that you're free to use as is or customize.

  2. Have you looked at our PTO Manager volunteer software service for keeping track of all your parents, managing volunteers for events, and communicating with parents? It really does make a difference for those groups that take advantage.


Many parents will help if the opportunity and timing and commitment are all right. You have to ask -- sometimes several times, and always nicely -- and you need a system for keeping track of the interest. It's not as hard as it sounds, and it's well worth the effort.