How to Attract New PTA Volunteers This Year

Updated: June 2025

Summary:

• Show appreciation, skip the guilt trips, and avoid micromanaging—FutureFund helps reduce stress and increase retention by making it easier for volunteers to sign up, stay connected, and contribute.
• Recruit volunteers year-round by making sign-up easy and accessible. Use QR codes at events, consider community members beyond parents, and offer incentives like volunteer hour credits or local giveaways.
• Hold dedicated membership drives or pair them with school events, and use current members to help recruit—FutureFund’s digital forms and secure contact database can help.
• Keep communication flowing with follow-ups, shared tips, and FutureFund’s messaging tools; avoid gatekeeping and make new volunteers feel included and appreciated.
• Boost engagement by offering flexible, fun, and skill-matched volunteer roles—highlight time commitments up front and provide options for at-home or virtual participation.

Volunteers are essential for keeping a PTA organized and running well. When your volunteers feel supported, they sign up more often and work harder to make your fundraisers successful—so using the right tools and strategies to attract and engage them is a key part of your school group’s long-term success.FutureFund supports PTA volunteers with tools that help your team stay organized and in the loop. Here’s a guide from our team you can use to help your PTA attract new volunteers and enhance parent engagement.

Table of Contents

• Recruiting Members
• Holding Membership Drives
• Communicating With Members
• Improving Volunteer Engagement
• See What FutureFund Can Do for Your Volunteers
• FAQ

Recruiting Members

Start Before the School Year Begins

Back-to-school season is the single best time of year to sell memberships, sign up new volunteers, and secure donations. That’s because of two reasons:

1. Parents are excited about their children returning to school, and
2. The stress of the holiday season (more to-dos and tighter budgets) hasn’t arrived yet

For PTAs looking to grow, the message is clear: you’ll get more volunteers the earlier in the year you start. In fact, you’ll probably do even better if you start recruiting before the school year even gets going.

FutureFund’s FirstStep program can help. It lets users of our platform sign up donors and volunteers to support multiple fundraising projects in advance of the school year—so your school can hit the ground running and hit key PTA goals faster.

Recruit All Year Long

While back to school time is usually the most popular time to recruit new hands for your community projects, keep in mind that every fundraising event is an opportunity to expand your volunteer list.

You never know when your next group of volunteers will be ready to sign on the dotted line, so make sure to have sign-up information available and ready. Create QR Codes that are linked directly to your sign-up forms so you can automatically register new members and organize their contact information within your secure database through FutureFund.

Cast a Wider Net

Don’t just depend on school parents for your volunteer pool. Consider your community members and their preferences when looking for volunteers for your events!

If you’re using FutureFund, this part is easy. New members are prompted to select their volunteer preferences as soon as they sign-up using a quick online form. Then your database is updated with a list of what every volunteer wants to do—along with their contact info, so you can get them on board for the right opportunities. Learn more on our Volunteer Management page.

Sweeten the Deal

Don’t be afraid to throw in a few freebies or emphasize the benefits to your volunteers for their time:

• Trying to appeal to some high schoolers? Remind them that volunteer hours and giving back to their community will look GREAT on their college applications. 
• Were you able to swing some free movie passes or other donations from some local shops? Offer them to your volunteers in exchange for their time during an event or the event prep.
• If you use FutureFund, you can also provide exclusive discounts for members. This can make it easier for them to purchase items from your online store, buy tickets for school games and other events, or purchase concessions. Learn more about member pricing.

With incentives like these, you’ll not only show your volunteers your appreciation, you’ll give them something tangible to take home after they’re done helping with your event. And you’ll make them more likely to help with the next one!

Holding Membership Drives

Hold annual membership drives or plan them at specific intervals throughout the year. These drives can be planned as “events” with the purpose of recruiting members into the PTA and the volunteer pool, or they can be paired with other school-related events as well, such as back-to-school or registration nights.

Communicating with Members

Utilize FutureFund’s Messaging Tools

FutureFund makes managing PTA members incredibly easy by giving you a single platform you can use to sign-up, communicate, and engage your members. Create custom sender profiles and audiences, and reach out to volunteers in specific positions to seamlessly coordinate fundraising efforts.

Follow Up with Everyone

Anyone who signs up to volunteer for events deserves a call back or a quick chat for the generosity of their time.

Even if it’s just a quick interview to confirm their availability and their comfort levels with different aspects of the event process, it’s important that they understand that you see them and you appreciate their willingness to help. This makes people feel valued and encourages them to volunteer in the future.

FutureFund makes it easy to follow-up with your members by allowing you to keep a digital volunteer directory. This provides a safe and secure way to store parent contact information, and lets you customize permissions so that only the people who need access can see it.

No Gatekeeping Allowed

We’ve all been the newbies in a given situation, and feeling confused and out of the loop isn’t fun. Make sure all of your volunteers are on the same page for their tasks.

Also, if anyone seems lost, feel free to give them whatever tips and tricks that you found useful at that stage in the volunteer process. We want to make sure that everyone feels included, comfortable, and confident with their job, so that they know they’re a valuable part of the volunteer team.

Patience is Key

Be aware that it will sometimes take several conversations before a potential volunteer is ready to report for duty. This is perfectly okay. Just be mindful of when someone crosses from thinking about it to being uninterested, and respect their need for space if they request it.

Improving Volunteer Engagement

Flexibility is a Must

Try to give a job to anyone who is available, even if their availability is only once every other week to once a month. If one of your volunteers has young kids and they’re having trouble finding a babysitter, try to give them a job where they can bring their kids with them. Your volunteers will notice you going the extra mile to accommodate them, which will inspire them to sign up again and again.

Maximize Volunteer Potential

Try to pair volunteers to activities within their wheelhouse if at all possible. This can be more creative than just matching volunteers to their preferences in FutureFund (although that’s a great place to start). For example:

• Did any artists offer to help out at an event? Add a face painting station or art class booth to your next fundraiser!
• Know any engineers or physicists? See if they would be willing to host a paper airplane building class and subsequent paper airplane contest for the kids in the community!

Trying to match your volunteers with their comfort levels will not only let them know that you value their contribution, but it will allow them to feel like their time volunteering for your event was their time well spent, which is a win for everyone involved.

Extra Tips for Successful Volunteer Recruiting

• Make It Fun: Volunteers are more likely to return if the experience is enjoyable and memorable for everyone involved.
• Clarify Time Commitments: Label tasks on your sign-up sheets by how long they take so parents can choose what fits their schedule.
• Offer Remote Options: Let people help from home with simple jobs like cutting materials or managing online activities.
• Show Your Enthusiasm: Talking proudly about your events can inspire others to get involved and join the fun.
• Skip the Guilt Trips: Focus on thanking the volunteers who came rather than calling out the ones who didn’t.
• Don’t Micromanage: Give volunteers space to work their own way—it builds confidence and makes the job more enjoyable.
• Express Gratitude: Remind volunteers that their help makes the event possible and that their time truly matters.

See What FutureFund Can Do for Your Volunteers

Saving your volunteers time and reducing their stress makes them happier, and more likely to participate in your fundraising activities—which in turn helps your school group meet your financial targets. By streamlining communication and automating key processes in one easy-to-manage database, FutureFund gives you the tools you need to make volunteering easier than ever.

Get started with FutureFund here to learn about the specific ways that we can help your PTA attract, engage, and retain volunteers. For more details about some of the key tools we offer, browse the FAQ below.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I use FutureFund’s messaging system to gain more volunteers?

FutureFund’s messaging system lets you:

• Send messages to every parent in your school community or filter your audience to reach specific groups.
• Create unique sender profiles to make sure the message is always coming from the appropriate party.
• Use customizable message templates to save time when broadcasting updates or announcements.

How does FutureFund save time for volunteers?

FutureFund is designed to streamline key aspects of fundraising and selling—which means your volunteers can spend less time raising more money.

• Pre-Built Fundraising Campaigns: Every account comes with templates for different fundraiser types ready to customize and launch—no need to create a campaign from scratch ever again.
• Real-Time Analytics: See every donor and their contribution as soon as they make it, and track your campaign progress with helpful data visualization tools.
• Payment Processing: Accept payments via all major credit and debit cards and record purchases made through other methods like cash and checks as well.

How does FutureFund increase parent engagement?

FutureFund reduces unnecessary paperwork and automates key administrative tasks so that your parent volunteers can do more meaningful work in less time. Key features include:

• Volunteer Sign-Up: Make it easier for volunteers to sign-up by uploading all the forms they need to your account—so they can spend less time on paperwork.
• Online Directory: Track all your members across different levels and store their contact information in a secure database that’s easy for your admins to navigate and edit.
• Messaging System: Keep the people who need to know in the loop with customizable messaging tools that make it easy to reach your whole organization or specific audiences.
• Parent Site: Provide useful resources to parents by creating a dedicated hub for them—plus use it to provide your members with discounts and other perks!