Whether you like it or not, building parent involvement in your parent group is a long process. If you don’t take the long view, chances are good that you will be continually frustrated. That frustration will only hamper your efforts at the parent group.
What you need is a game plan. If you have low participation right now, start thinking ahead about how you can build that up.
The first step is to make building participation one of your main goals. Everything you do should have a participation building component to it. This includes fundraising and regular monthly meetings. Think of ways you can use those things to build participation. Also, plan family events and other fun things to help build involvement.
When you make building participation a priority, you will start thinking differently about your parent group. For instance, is it easy for a newcomer to get involved? If you find it isn’t that easy, then you will want to start to make changes.
After you start to focus on building participation, you will likely realize that communication is very important. It isn’t enough to post meeting dates in a newsletter and rely on word of mouth. Your group should look into having a web site that you can easily update and setting up an email list. Tools like MemberHub also help with group communication.
Once you begin to show a serious interest in participation, and work toward having better communication, you will start to see an uptick in participation. But don’t expect too much here. You should think about how you measure participation.
If a majority of parents know what your parent group is doing, you can measure that as a win for participation. Maybe they aren’t at the meetings, but at least they are listening. It is a pretty good start. If your fundraisers are hitting their goals and getting positive feedback, your participation is healthy. If you get good attendance at events, that’s good for participation. Of course, all of this is nice, but what you really need is volunteers.
Getting volunteers is easier when there is general knowledge about and involvement with your group. Once you have that, you need to do two things. First, be sure to ask for volunteers. Second, have something specific for them to do. For instance, you may need a volunteer to organize baskets for the silent auction. Another volunteer may be needed to update the website. Be specific when you ask.
The more you focus on building participation and building good communication, the easier it will be to grow both passive involvement and direct engagement through volunteering.
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Written by Bradford Shimp. Stevco Fundraising provides hassle-free fundraising for youth oriented groups and volunteer organizations.
photo credit: A. Drauglis Furnituremaker