Ending the year right is as important as getting it started right. One important and valuable step for wrapping up your PTA year is putting together and offering your members some type of Annual Report. This is an end-of-the-year report that sums up all of the great work your PTA has done and is a powerful resource to inspire support for your association.
Among other things, the Annual Report allows:
- Everyone recruiting members to easily show what your PTA has done and what their membership will support.
- Everyone who is or has been a member to see what their membership helped to support.
- Everyone in your community to see what your PTA accomplished.
- Your PTA to show appreciation for everyone who supported your initiatives with their attendance, volunteer work, support or sponsorships.
- Your school to show how family engagement contributed to making a difference in your school community.
Putting an Annual Report together is not difficult. You may want to include the following:
- The total number of members for the year.
- The PTA mission-related activities/initiatives organized or sponsored by your PTA to support the students, the teachers, the families and/or the community—every group impacted by your work. List all your PTA did throughout the year:
- to welcome all families
- to promote two-way meaningful communication
- to empower families to support their children’s academic achievement
- to empower families to secure their child’s safety, well-being and best learning, social and emotional opportunities
- to work alongside your school leaders to secure public funding and resources that support the best learning conditions in your school or community
- to work collaboratively with the business, faith-based organizations and various other communities your school is part of?
- A list of all activities organized or sponsored by your PTA that raised funds to support the mission-related activities or initiatives
- A thank you section with:
- A list of all volunteers who helped to make possible all activities or initiatives of the PTA.
- A list of businesses, individuals and/or organizations who supported the work of your PTA.
- Other special accomplishments of your PTA.
Your annual report document doesn’t need to be wordy. Just a reflection of all the work that you did. I’ve seen annual reports in the form of a written document. I’ve seen annual reports in the form of fun videos with pictures of all the activities the PTA organized throughout the year. Because of this exercise, you may discover your PTA is already doing the work of a National PTA School of Excellence and would only need to register and complete the application process to be recognized.
Distributing your Annual Report via a short message with an attachment or a link to a simple PDF or video shared via social media channels or text is also a great way to inspire your members to renew their membership and to continue to support PTA. We can’t wait to see your annual reports!
Need some help? Check out these resources:
Thank you so much for all you do to advance the PTA mission for all children.
Ivelisse Castro is a national service representative for National PTA.
