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Three Proven Ways to Get Your Booster Club’s Message Heard

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In today’s noisy world of professional and social media, it’s hard to get your message heard. Thriving booster clubs know that clear, impactful communication with parents is vital to success. But how do you break through the distractions and reach your parents?

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The answer is really not that difficult – you just need to be intentional when crafting your communications. Whether communicating by email, newsletter, Facebook or Twitter, these three best practices will help get your message read, not ignored.

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Seven Ways to Meet Your Booster Club’s Early Income Needs

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Many booster clubs’ annual budgets are fulfilled through student payments and fundraising. Typically, families are asked to make an up front, out-of-pocket payment and to fundraise throughout the year.

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The IRS has set high expectations for booster clubs’ fundraising. They require 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations to distribute funds equally among all participants. Specifically, no student may be denied the opportunity to participate due to their [in]ability to pay student fees or to participate in fundraising. I explain this in more detail in my recent post, Should Students Who Don’t Fundraise Get to Participate?

What can a booster club do?

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Five Essentials to Create Your Booster Club’s Midterm Plan

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In many ways, leading a booster club is like running a small business. With an entrepreneurial spirit, the booster president casts a vision for the organization’s future. From this vision, goals are developed for the midterm.

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Photo by Katelyn Caldwell

Planning for the midterm is vital to a booster club’s sustained success. The process of midterm planning compels you to anticipate longer range needs that may not be evident through the organization’s day-to-day operations. By its nature, booster leadership may create a short-term mindset. With volunteers serving one to two year terms, it may be easy for them to assume the attitude to “keep the lights on” until they rotate out.

Let’s look at what’s important in creating a midterm plan for your booster club.

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Three Lessons in Generosity We Can Learn from Elvis Presley

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Elvis Presley was undoubtedly one of the greatest entertainers of our time. His most devoted fans know just how generous he was throughout his lifetime. What we may not realize, though, is the significance of his generosity to a booster club. Here are three lessons we can learn from Elvis’ generosity.

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1. Elvis was generous toward people who could never repay him. Elvis Presley lived the greatest rags to riches story of the twentieth century. But even after becoming the biggest star of his era, he never forgot his humble upbringing. There are many stories of his random acts of generosity toward people who were not as fortunate.

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Three Proven Ways to Show Volunteers You Care

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One of the greatest challenges you will face leading your booster club is motivating volunteers. Unlike the workplace, you cannot exert position power over your people. And let’s face it, no one wants to be bossed around. Even in the workplace, that’s just not effective. You must find other ways to influence your volunteers.

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I have found that recognition and gratitude are two of the greatest motivators for volunteers. Likewise, the absence of recognition and gratitude is one of the greatest demotivators in an organization.

Booster club officers and committee chairs must strive to create a culture of recognition and gratitude. Here are three types of recognition that are essential to a thriving booster organization:

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Four Reasons You Must Give Others the Opportunity to Serve in Your Booster Club

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When you accept a leadership role in a booster club, you may feel an obligation to be involved in all of the club’s events and activities. You may feel the need to be there and make sure things are done right, or to simply set a good example for others.

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And, while you should set a good example for others to follow, you must balance your time and allow others to serve.

When my son crossed over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, we visited several troops to find the right fit for him. On one of our troop visits, the Scoutmaster was away. There was no one in his absence who could fully answer our questions.

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Leading a Booster Club is Hard!

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There. I said it. Leading a booster club is hard! It’s the elephant in the room that all enthusiastic booster officers, coaches, and teachers want to ignore. But it’s true.

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Today’s parents face more distractions and demands for their time than parents of any recent generation. These distractions pose significant challenges for those of us who volunteer to lead booster clubs.

My three year tenure as booster club president was both challenging and rewarding. However, the rewards always outweighed the challenges. Based on my experience, here are three of the greatest challenges a booster leader will face.

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The Proven Strategy to Successfully Launch Your Booster Club’s New School Year

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Thriving booster clubs know the key to success is to start each new school year strong. A well planned and executed annual kick-off meeting is just what you need to motivate students and win over their parents.

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As the current school year draws to a close, schedule an annual kick-off meeting for all new and returning students and their families. Establish the meeting as mandatory, and require every participating student to be represented. There are not many occasions when all of your parents are together at once, so take advantage of this opportunity to set the tone and create enthusiasm for the new year.

Here are six essentials for an inspiring annual kick-off meeting.

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Three Ways You Impact Students For Life When You Volunteer

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Last week, dozens of Chippewa High School’s band trophies and other awards were found in a trash dumpster behind the school. The discovery evoked memories and sentiment of current students, booster club parents, and alumni. School administration apologized, describing it “a big mistake by a single employee who has since been dealt with.”

Courtesy Katelyn Caldwell

Courtesy Katelyn Caldwell

This incident revealed and reinforced just how important extracurricular activities are to students and their families. One mother, whose son was killed while in high school, tearfully shared that, “band was so important to me and my family that I buried my son in a band uniform.”

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The Honest Truth About Recruiting Volunteer Leaders

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Last week, I shared six proven ways to win in recruiting volunteer leaders. While these methods have proven to be incredibly effective, I’ve got to be fully transparent: there is no guarantee of success when recruiting volunteers. Occasionally, even the most intentional recruiting will not predict a person’s success in a leadership role.

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Courtesy of dreamstime/Dragonimages

Once, when filling a critical leadership role, I applied all the best practices of recruiting, but it just didn’t work out. Here’s what happened.