An issue that had been bubbling for years finally boiled over earlier this month when the Chapel Hill – Carrboro City Schools PTA Council asked the local PTA Thrift Shop to drop “PTA” from its name.
The request came after more than a half-century of the thrift shop operating in a way that large portions of the revenue were directed to local school district PTAs.
Chair of the PTA Thrift Shop Board of Directors Dawn Edgerton said in a recent interview that the thrift shop was not operating in a sustainable form.
“We were giving away most of our net profits, and in some cases even our reserve fund, in order to maximize what we give to the PTAs,” Edgerton said. “That was a great thing, but it meant we were not reinvesting in our organization for the long-term.”
Investing in the long-term health of the thrift shop came in the form of a new facility being built in Carrboro. While the thrift shop still had zoning approval, the board decided to move forward with an additional building to house YouthWorx on Main – a new initiative aimed at providing space for youth-focused non-profits.
YouthWorx now rents space to those non-profits and to the Chapel Hill – Carrboro City School System, Edgerton said, at below-market rates.
That new construction has been expensive, and the debt service associated with that development, according to Edgerton, cut into the percentage of thrift shop profits that could go to PTAs.
Riza Redd recently finished her term as PTA president at Seawell Elementary School and now represents the school on the PTA Council. She said the council was aware the disbursements from the thrift shop would stop during construction, but she said the council was under the impression those distributions would have started back, and possibly increased, once the new facility was up and running.
“It’s been a huge blow for a lot of PTAs,” Redd said. “Some PTAs have been able to financially recover; some are still struggling. And at the end of the day, it’s not the PTAs who are impacted; it’s the schools; it’s our teachers; it’s our staff; it’s our children.”
The PTA Council wrote to the PTA Thrift Shop that they were requesting the organization drop “PTA” from its name because the council believed the thrift shop no longer lived up to the national PTA mission.
“The reality is this,” Redd said, “the Thrift Shop is no longer the PTA Thrift Shop. The name implies that the benefit is for the PTA, solely to the PTA.
“If there’s a broader mission, a broader scope, then change the name, and we’ll support the thrift shop like we as community members support all of the various other thrift shops and local agencies and things like that that we can choose to support.”
Redd said it was a tough decision for the council to make this request of the thrift shop.
Edgerton said the thrift shop expanded its mission statement but not its total mission. She said the YouthWorx operation expands revenue generation opportunities for the thrift shop, which Edgerton said would eventually allow for more money to be allocated back to individual PTAs.
“Those organizations are non-profits, and they are youth-serving,” Edgerton said of the YouthWorx occupants. “And we feel that is not a detriment to the community but an enhancement to our mission.”
Edgerton said the thrift shop acknowledged the frustration from the PTA Council, adding that she was a former PTA president herself. And she said the thrift shop was committed to increasing the disbursements back to the PTAs, but that it was important to take care of the viability of the thrift shop operations.
“We have not given money to any other organization other than PTAs,” Edgerton said.
Those funds are disbursed to PTAs through the traditional distributions and through grants, which are made up of money from the thrift shop revenue and teaming up with larger foundations in some cases.
Edgerton added that she felt the thrift shop was still fulfilling its mission through its work and still hopes to increase disbursements as the operation pays off debt from the recent construction.
Redd encouraged parents to get directly involved with local PTAs.
“I know they send out emails and letters and notifications about all the things that they’re doing,” Redd said. “I think from a community-member perspective about this issue itself, if you are concerned about this, please reach out and let the thrift shop know that this is concerning to you in terms of your understanding of how the funding is supposed to work.”
Edgerton said the thrift shop board would be discussing the council’s request to drop PTA from the name at its meeting later this month. She added the board may feel it needs more time to make such a large decision.
The council’s request to the thrift shop came with a July 15 deadline.
Every tax return filed by the PTA Thrift Shop declares its charter and mission: to benefit the PTAs of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Not private foundations. Not the Chamber of Commerce. That charter (filed and reconfirmed every year by the Executive Director with the N.C. Department of State) is the reason the PTATS is tax-exempt. The Executive Director and Chairperson of the Board of Directors sign a statement on each tax return, under penalty of perjury, that its mission is to benefit the CHCCS PTAs.
Yet, the tax returns show that the PTATS, for years now, pays grant writers to write grants for the benefit of several private foundations. Services provided to the foundations are listed as “rental expenses” on the tax returns. Dues of $5,000+ are shown paid to the Chamber of Commerce. Although the Board of the PTATS does not have legal right to change its mission at will, that is what it did. Half the board members live outside the CHCCS district, and of the ones who live within it, not one is a member of a CHCCS PTA.
In mediation, the PTATS refused to send its accountant, who is on its board, and its lawyer, also on the board, to give actual information and answer questions. The mortgage shown on the 6/30/16 and 6/30/17 tax returns is growing (from $3,800,000 to $4,400,000), rather than being paid down. An additional loan of $250,000, taken out on 6/30/2016, was not shown until the following fiscal year– when the entire building project had been completed and had its grand opening in May, 2015. It would appear that a spendthrift board has ruined the PTA Thrift Shop. It is now, not before, that it is operating in “an unsustainable form.”
QUOTE 1: “YouthWorx now rents space to those non-profits and to the Chapel Hill – Carrboro City School System, Edgerton said, at below-market rates.”
QUOTE 2: “‘We have not given money to any other organization other than PTAs,’ Edgerton said.”
These are incompatible. If the thrift shop is charging below market rates to tenants (regardless of who they are) then they are subsidizing those organizations with money that could be used to put the shop on stable financial ground.
Building a wonderful new building to increase revenue and stabilize the future ONLY makes sense if you then utilize that space as a revenue generator. I am so unclear on the plan here. How does the shop ever regain profitability (and return funds to PTAs) if it is charging below market rate to its tenant organizations?
This is NOT an academic discussion. PTAs used the funds generated by the thrift shop to support students, teachers and school communities. PTAs helped provide everything from playground equipment, cash for teachers to buy supplies, school gardens and play spaces. At Ephesus, the PTA helped pay for smart boards in class.
No one is suggesting that the thrift shop is not doing positive things in the community, or that we don’t support its continued existence.
We ARE saying that they are using the PTA name while being an organization that no longer exists to serve PTAs.
#ChangeTheName
Unfortunately, PTA Thrift Shop Board defends its real estate deals by stating it is positioning the shop for more proceeds; however, it appears unlikely that the shops will be able to do any substantive support in the foreseeable future. Why they proceeded to build a SECOND building when the first was not sustainable is unclear. What is clear is that proceeds are going to the infrastructure and the business and not to PTAs, students and local education. This is a prime example of how NOT to be a nonprofit.
In addition, little, if any, of the current dispute would be occurring now if PTA representation had not been excluded from the governance of the PTA Thrift Shop. PTA representatives should be a part of the PTA Thrift Shop Board and that alone is grounds for removing the name from the shop.
I no longer (for 2 years now) donate to PTATS. I no longer shop there. If PTATS wants to change its mission, how it accomplishes its mission and who benefits, that is its option. Continuing to use PTA and list schools on its website, DELIBERATELY leaves an impression that local donations will benefit locals schools and students.
That is bait and switch. It is fraudulent. An honest group would celebrate its decisions and desire to change what it does. This one hides by not updating its website, its name, its stores and writing passive aggressive letters to those wanting accountability.
Basically, it would appear PTATS wishes to continue receiving donations and money from a community it no longer wants to support, in favor of a more vague “triangle youth” focus. If you visit the website, you’ll see that PTATS continues to list local schools it “supports.” PTAs at those schools will say they haven’t received a dime in quite some time.
Perhaps PTATS is evolving in a good way. Perhaps the needs make a compelling argument for diverting funds from what used to be a local effort to support schools to triangle-wide projects for youth. But this has not been discussed with the stakeholders – parents, school PTAs and community members who donate goods to PTATS thinking they are helping out the schools. Shoppers – particularly those most in need who don’t have disposable income for direct donations – probably feel better about making purchases that help the schools.
At the very best, continuing to use the PTA thrift shop name is shabby and deceptive. And PTATS response to a request to stop is instructive.
From a public letter sent to the CHCCS PTA Council:
“With regards to the use of the name, the term ‘PTA Thrift Shop’ is not copyrighted by anyone
and our use of “PTA Thrift Shop” for over 45 years has provided us with a common law
trademark, allowing us to continue to use the name ‘PTA Thrift Shop’. ”
“Not copyrighted.” OK. How does “Deceptive” work? PTATS didn’t use the name for 45 years because it was concerned with establishing a “common law trademark.” The name was a description of its mission. The mission has changed. So should the name.