August is membership and club development month, a time to focus on and appreciate your members, celebrate their devotion to the club and the impact they have made. It's also a time to think about developing strategies around growing your membership. The reason why Rotary is such a successful organisation is because it is full of members that have one trait in common - the passion to make a difference in the world. All of us share this passion and it's what drives us to work together.
Today, a growing population of youth are not even aware of what the organisation is or does while those that do are unable to join for a variety of reasons. Granted, we've made many changes to combat this challenge such as the introduction of eClubs, relaxed attendance requirements, more meeting time options, etc. but we still have ways to go. Members continue to leave and clubs continue to struggle to recruit.
This year, with members in mind, why not create a development and recruitment strategy by implementing methods your club hasn't tried before?
Membership development:
1. Analyse results from past
exit interviews to see what members cited as their reason for leaving the club. Often, you can immediately see a pattern to act upon.
2. If your club doesn't conduct exit interviews, consider contacting ex-members from the past few years to ask them for feedback on what they feel the club could've done better.
3. Make sure every member has some role to play. Every member in your club joined to become part of something big, and if they aren't being given a chance to make a contribution to the club, slowly but surely, their satisfaction level will begin to decline. Consider giving each member some sort of responsibility at every meeting (ex: introduce/thank speaker, contribute jokes of the week for the club newsletter, etc.).
4. Focus on happiness: happy members are those that are motivated to do good for the club. There are many ways to keep members happy. Sometimes just being asked means a lot, so in your next meeting, have every member anonymously write changes that they would like to see in the club which would make them happy. Such a simple act shows your members that you care about their presence in the club
Recruitment strategies and other ideas are at: https://site.clubrunner.ca/page/membership-month
Membership - Revitalise your Club
PDG Peter Frueh has an excellent article with suggestions on boosting club membership in the latest “Networker”:
https://rotarydistrict9800.org.au/stories/membership-revitalise-your-club/