The PTA Thrift Shop will enter a “period of due diligence, beginning in the fall, regarding our organization’s name.”
That decision was made by the nonprofit’s Board of Directors during its meeting last week and comes amid tension between the thrift shop and the Chapel Hill – Carrboro City Schools PTA Council. The council sent a request to thrift shop leadership last month asking that the nonprofit remove the PTA lettering from its name.
For decades, the council and thrift shop shared a harmonious relationship that led to store revenues being turned into cash disbursements given to the individual PTAs across the school district. But the council wrote in its request to the thrift shop that the non-profit had changed its mission in recent years beyond solely supporting the PTAs.
The mission statement of the PTA Thrift Shop has expanded in recent years and the operations now includes project grants to PTAs and providing workspace for youth-focused non-profits. The thrift shop recently opened a new facility on Main Street in Carrboro with the YouthWorx on Main non-profit space opening on the lot adjacent to the thrift shop.
The council is alleging that this expansion and the diminishing distributions to the PTAs warrants the thrift shop dropping “PTA” from its name. Thrift shop officials have said the distributions have been limited in recent years as the organization is paying back loans needed for the recent construction. These new facilities are helping ensure the thrift shop’s financial future, according to the board.
“Although our community partners as well as other community members support our continued use of the name and mission, we have heard and acknowledge the concerns,” the thrift shop board wrote in a statement late last week. “In particular, the CHCCS PTAs need for consistent, reliable annual funding, which has historically depended on our organization’s net revenue from the operations of our two retail locations.”
The due diligence period that thrift shop leadership said would be coming this fall will encompass “the organization’s name related to our mission, vision, as well as our continued commitment to the CHCCS PTAs and our community.”
The goal of the period, according to the thrift shop, is to “deliberately and carefully think through all aspects of our business model.”
The thrift shop put no deadline on its due diligence period. The PTA Council initially set a July 15 deadline for the thrift shop to remove the lettering from its name.
PTA Council leadership shifted to a newly elected slate on July 1. This post has been updated with a statement from the council received on Monday:
“The PTA Council Board appreciates that the PTA Thrift Shop Board of Directors says it has heard and acknowledges concerns from community members about the continued use of PTA in its name. The PTA Council and its members representing 19 PTAs across CHCCS continue to wish them organizational viability and success. However, it’s shocking that the PTA Thrift Shop Board is asking for yet more—and undefined—time to consider next steps.
“If the PTA Thrift Shop does not stop the use of PTA by the requested July 15th deadline, it should meet that date with what PTA Council has sought for well over the past year– it should provide transparency about its finances by submitting to its first external financial review and provide a detailed explanation of how cash disbursements to PTAs will resume in the near future with a concrete plan and timeframe. Absent that transparency, which could alleviate some of the community’s concerns, the name must be removed without further delay.”
I think the use of “PTA” in the name of the thrift shop also prevents the real PTA from raising money under its own name.