Back-to-school season is always a hectic time of the year. One way to make the transition as smooth as possible is to start planning early and give yourself and the club enough time to complete each task.
Below you’ll find a basic guide list of tasks to keep your eye on as the previous school year ends and the new school year begins. Feel free to add any missing steps or remove anything that your club won’t need to tackle until later on in the year.
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Reviewing the budget from the previous school year helps ensure that you have a clear picture of your current resources and can make educated decisions about where to allocate them in the future. Here’s a quick list of what to check in the process:
Income sources: Review all expected and actual income, including fundraisers, donations, and membership fees.
Expenses: Compare actual spending to budgeted amounts for programs, events, and operational costs.
Balance: Confirm income matches or exceeds expenses; note any discrepancies.
Documentation: Ensure receipts, invoices, and financial reports are organized and accurate.
Compliance: Ensure spending aligns with PTA goals and bylaws.
Trends: Note any patterns of overspending or underspending for future budgeting improvements.
We’ve also got resources that can make this easier. Check out the following:
The sooner and more thoroughly you can plan out the big fundraising events, the more smoothly they’ll go when it’s time to put them together.
This includes making flyers, mapping out volunteers, and lining up other logistical challenges so things roll smoothly when the PTO parents are busy with kids as well as club duties.
Pro tip: make sure to plan different types of events for the community. Traditions can be fun, but make sure they don’t become stale and boring!
We’ve got tons of guides on how to plan different events. Find inspiration and step-by-step instructions below:
Meeting with the head of your school at the start of the year helps ensure alignment on logistics and resourcing for your fundraising plans.
Make sure you have a list of topics to go over with them, including ideas for fundraisers and what support they need to make the school year more successful. Introduce yourself if you haven’t met before and make sure to note their preferred way to communicate.
This doesn’t necessarily have to be a breakfast event—but those are always popular! Whatever you do, make sure to acknowledge the hard work teachers do and let them know that you are there to support them.
If the club doesn’t want to hold an actual event, try sending a nice note or sending each teacher a small gift. We’ve got a few ideas you can use to show teachers how much you appreciate them:
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Get StartedRequest a few moments to speak at the school’s back-to-school night if the school hasn’t carved out the time already. Make sure to emphasize how much kids enjoy the events and how much fun the club has putting everything together.
Try to avoid anything that sounds like a sales pitch for recruiting or fundraising. You want new parents to focus on all of the positive aspects of the club for the kids and the community. There will be time to put out calls for volunteers and donations afterwards (see below).
Once the speech is over, you’ll want to send out a follow-up email to the school community outlining some of your plans for the upcoming year. This is a great way to engage new and returning parents, and it’s easy to do with FutureFund’s built-in messaging system. Check out this guide for more advice:
Let the new families know that the club is there to support them and the community. Consider setting up a table at your first open house or back-to-school night and greet them with a friendly smile. You could even hand out small gifts if you can find budget-friendly items!
Make sure you have an easy way to sign up volunteers at the start of the year. This could involve:
The welcome events for families that we mentioned in the last section can be a huge help here. Because you’ll be talking to families face to face, this is the perfect time to have them look over the list of events and see if they would be able to lend a hand with any of them.
Remember, be proactive! Contact anyone who signs up to volunteer—then check their time availability and ask if they have any special skills that they want to share with the community.
After signing up everyone who wishes to volunteer for the PTA during the school year, have a meeting so you can welcome them and thank them for their participation. Share any feedback you’ve gathered from the school leadership with them, and then see if there’s anything that you need to start planning right away.
Back-to-school season is a busy time—but it can also provide incredible opportunities for your PTA if you capitalize on the natural excitement it brings to parents, students, and staff. Use the checklist above to make sure your school group has:
FutureFund makes it even easier to get organized for the back-to-school season—and it’s 100% free for the K-12 school groups who use it. Get started today so that you can kick off the new school year properly and set your community up for success.
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From classroom plants to supply gift baskets, these practical and economical teacher appreciation ideas are as useful as they are inexpensive. Make your school’s teachers feel valued without breaking the bank with this list of ideas from FutureFund.
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Hype videos drive fundraiser engagement, so they’re vital for school groups. Here’s a step-by-step guide for creating a video that inspires your whole school community to donate and volunteer for your next event.
Trinkets are common rewards for K-12 students who participate in fundraisers—but they aren’t the most memorable. Let the FutureFund team show you why using experiences as rewards can be more meaningful in the long run, and why it’s often more cost-effective as well.
