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The Challenges of Increasing Membership

There are all sorts of challenges in the business world, how to manage people, how to generate growth, how to create new products and services and while all of them are often discussed, one challenge is almost always raised while speaking with those in associations.  It's how do I increase membership?  Now that same question comes in many forms.  "Our industry is consolidating, how so we continue to grow our membership?"  "We are on tight budget because membership is declining."  No matter.  The condition is the same.

Many associations just can't find or keep membership. For those with "growing associations," such as the Romance Writers of America association, the information will still prove useful in future planning.

Obviously, solving this broad challenge is more than can be addressed in one article.  That's not to discount that here are two key elements of membership growth and retention that should immediately be reviewed for any organization to thrive.  Let's start with a major contributor to membership going south.  It's ROI.  Yes, the old ROI.  Return on Investment.  You've heard once if not twice and yet I find few organizations that have their ROI on straight.

ROI means to a dues-paying subscriber that their organization will get a return for their money spent.  Real dollars.  So if membership is $450 US for the year, they will get the $450 back plus extra.  If they don't, after a period of time they won't return.

Sounds simple and yet I see few associations taking responsibility for real ROI.  The belief is that if you offer networking and education, members will stay.  You're wrong. Those are only subsets of the bigger picture.  Networking never guarantees a return and neither does education.  I'd put it another way.  If a dues-paying member pays their $450 US, never attends any functions, and then at the end of the year receives a check for $1000 US, how long do you think they would continue to send in their membership payments?  Forever.  That's because the member is a guaranteed payback.

The same philosophy should be driven home to every association president, director, board member, staff person and supplier.  Associations need to deliver on the investment and not leave it up to the member.  That's why chamber of commerce's have so many challenges.  They believe their number one reason people join is networking.  It's not.  IT'S TO MAKE MONEY.  There are few other reasons. Through networking or not.

For this reason association staffing always try to get people involved in attending functions.  I've attended functions and all I found were people trying to sell to me and I'm left trying to find the right connection.  If the association or chamber switched the responsibility to where they knew that in order to keep me they would need to facilitate the visitor making money, at least enough to pay for the membership, then the programs or connections would be different.  Michelle, the greeter at the event, would not just give me my badge then tell me to have a good time.  She would bring me right up to Kent Casilli and say, "You two need to talk.  He needs 4000 widgets and you need a reliable supplier."  No bull about this deal.  A win-win win for all three parties including the association.

If you screw up the deal, it's your problem.

Members would then stay if their bank accounts started to fill.  In fact they might even tell others how they made money by being a member.

Which brings me to an extension of ROI and the number two challenge associations have that translates to increasing membership. It's the education part of the program.  Without using a brush that's too wide, let's outline a significant reason that retention drops within organizations.  Conferences.  One of the biggest money makers in any association next to membership.  Again, let's keep ROI in mind.

The reason for the conference is to educate the member to run their organization better or to improve their skills.  Only slightly right.  The underlying problem is that association's focus is education and the members focus is MAKING MONEY. They need to be the same. Besides, the member must make money to cover the cost of attending the event. When the challenge is only part right, the answers are also only part right.

That's why at a recent association meeting, the director, said to me, "membership is down and we can't seem to reverse the trend."  With over 1200 prospects in the industry and only 296 members, I asked him,  "What's the major benefit to becoming a member?"  "Networking and education."  With no hesitation. Did he take an association brain washing course?  He could not understand why membership was down given that their conference fee was a mere $269 US.  Sounds like so little money.

But let's do the math.

The conference is $269 US per person. (Let's use $250 US to make the numbers simple.) The firm typically sends two people. A $500 investment.  Add the flights at $500 each and the discounted hotel room at $125 per person as they are not husband and wife.  Include the meals, taxis and other costs and the total cost of membership is $450 for the dues, $1000 airfare, $250 -$300 for the rooms, miscellaneous expenses at $250 and you've now got an expense of $2000 as a cost of membership to the association.  Add in the fact that key employees are missing from the organization, or opportunity costs, then the number could skyrocket to $10,000 or $50,000, depending on the person's role in the business

Did your member get $2000, $10,000 or $50,000 worth of return from your event?  Did the association link buyers and sellers in a way that created business? Did the speakers "suck" or were they all entertainment oriented so that the visitor had a good time but learned little?  Only you can answer that.

And if your one of those smiley sheet counters your missing the boat. Associations are not about smiley face score cards. Smiley faces don't always mean the presenter or materials at the event challenged the status quo.  Told the audience things they did not want to hear as the organization has become inbred with people moving from one firm to another.  That's not the real score card for an event and for those meeting planners who live by conference evaluations, BIG MISTAKE.

I can't tell you how many times a meeting planner or executive director has commented that they loved a presentation I've given yet they can't write a testimonial until they get back the comment sheets.  Are you kidding me?  One member wrote, "loved the presentation but hated the tie." Truth be told, some people should be completely unraveled by some information delivered by experts.

I know you're now thinking there is more than just a conference. "We do send out a newsletter, hold a regional meeting and you do have lobbyists." But is that enough or the right solution to putting dollars in the member's pocket?  Besides, the regional meetings cost $69 US to attend.  Or more reasonably $250- $2000 with additional costs.  Don't forget to take into consideration time away from home and missing Suzie's rehearsal.

Associations need to start delivering on the promise of making money for their members. The reason they joined.  Making money could be achieved by facilitating direct connections that improve the members' conditions or for that matter insuring that individuals get the right CEU credits so that they can continue to practice their profession or get a raise.  Delivery must also be 24/7/365, not just a newsletter here and there and a few conferences. I'd also venture to guess that most members never understand the real value of lobbyist.

Membership won't drop if the value exceeds the costs.

Take it one step further. One association VP once commented that they've had to raise the booth costs for the vendors due to declining membership and attendance.  That the vendors are resisting the change. I would, wouldn't you?  Especially if membership is declining.  Again, the strategy is wrong. You don't build associations by focusing on vendors' fees; they are icing on the cake.  If membership continues to grow, or remains consistent with the industry's growth, vendors will always pay a fair rate for booth space as long as they can MAKE MONEY on the investment to attend the trade show.

Ask your vendors if they would have a problem paying the fees if the membership started to increase again and conference attendance grew to twice it's current volume?  One Vice President of sales commented to an executive director, they would purchase two additional booths for the show!  There's your sign, as Jeff Foxworthy would say.

If you focus on the wrong target, the association will never reach its potential.

Let's take a quick detour.

Some organizations may never grow any bigger than they are today… and yet the ROI equation still works.  Take for example the CLFP. The California League of Food Producers.  This group has a membership that is consolidating as fast a Myspace adds web pages.  Uniliever buys this company; Heinz buys another, and so on and so on.  The challenge is that if membership continues to "merge," then what happens? There are fewer companies to solicit.  Fees must continue to rise.  What may have been $2000 a year may now be $7500.  It's because there is a limited amount of players in the market and the cost to lobby congress, deliver conferences, and print publications wont shrink as the membership declines at a similar pace.  The solution still comes down to ROI.  If they see that the lobbing effort makes them $250,000 US in profits due to water-usage legislative maneuver , then they will continue to remain a member.

At this point I think you've got the point so let's address Board member acquisition and retention as a bonus.

I remember an occasion when I was asked to head the Chamber of Commerce Education committee for a community with over 300,000 people.  When I first started the "job," I was advised that it would be work to get people to volunteer let alone do any work.  Besides the new goals were pretty lofty.

To accomplish this growth, new policies and ROI actions were put in motion.  The first was that if you volunteered, I would find a way put your name in lights.  Meaning, if given the opportunity I would promote their organization and the individual to other members and the media when ever possible. Second was that if an individual volunteered to become a committee chairperson, (for which we needed four,) they would be able to put their name and company on every single piece of advertising going out to the community.  If there were a full-page ad in the paper, the volunteer's name was on it.  5000 fliers created, their name and logo were on them.  Signage had the same benefit.  This value was extreme, given that a quarter-page ad in the back of the publication was $350, and you might appear in 6 newsletter printings and 30,000 fliers over the course of 6 months.  While working on this committee you were going to get noticed!

You can guess what happened.  I had to do interviews for the 4 committee chair positions.  Yes, interviews.  We also grew from 6 active members to 42 active members in less than 6 months.  There was even a policy that if you missed three meetings, we did not call the member to see where they were or how they were doing.  They were just off the list.  To make this example even more impactful, realize this committee did not have lunch functions, these individuals did the work to put on programs to help others.  They had to work to get the value.

The results were astonishing.  We had prospects sign up to become a part of the chamber to work on the committee. We had new members sign up for the chamber because the new services we developed, which was highlighted by CNN, including an online marketplace for trainers. If you joined, you could place your company information on a database that was accessible by hundreds of thousands of members.  Several who joined never attended a function.  Their belief, "Even if I don't attend a meeting I've gotten value worth me membership fee."

The truth is that few people want to be on a board, because of the time commitment.  That's because, again, the ROI for the position if often less than the work output.  The key to attracting board members or for that matter, volunteers, is the same as above; the only difference is in what form is their ROI?  Board members will stay, and new individuals will volunteer, if the board is full of the "right" people.  Board members will stay and volunteer if what they are doing puts their name in lights.  Board members will work if there is a return. You can't actually give them cash so helping then generate visibility or to facilitate business is the deliverable.

You might say they "will work for food."

Lastly with board members, the reason they don't stay and don't work or don't volunteer is that there is too much work and a lack of tools to accomplish the jobs quickly. My research indicates that when a board member or volunteer take over a job, their role is often to recreate the wheel.  If you want to really make an association hum, create systems and tools so all volunteers have to do is follow the dots for the majority of their work.  Want a conference chairperson?  Give them a CPM chart, flow chart, graphs, forms, links, vendors all in one big kit so they can pull it out like a paint-the-numbers program.  If they need to do charity work, have the stock letters, release forms, scheduling files, vendors and all other tools in place to make the job a piece of cake.

True, there may some who volunteer to be altruistic.  To give back for years of guidance. However that's not the norm. Most are looking for the "what's in it for me." They really don't care about your organization unless they can get something in return.  For those that do, they still want an ROI.  Their name up in lights.  A pat on the back for a job well.  Too much work, and they'd rather chew grass in the pasture with the other old timers.

Developing a winning and growing association starts with the premise you use to develop your organization.  Networking and education are only the start.  Make some sound decisions to change the value proposition while constantly thinking ROI. If you don't, the seas are going to get pretty choppy. Anyone want a $1000?  Send $450 to…