Impact membership has on recruitment

Impact current members have on recruitment
 
Recruitment is considered one of the most important activities for club membership development. In order to thrive and grow, many people invest the majority of their resources in retention activities.
 
We often address retention and recruitment as two different challenges, but if you think about it, the two issues are more related than you would believe! Think about it, in order to attract new members, it's necessary to have a foundation of members which in turn will help stimulate the growth.
 
As it is the start of a new Rotary year, this is the perfect time to begin planning your strategies for membership development. Take a look at your membership numbers and compare how many members left your club vs. how many joined last year in the past five years. In ClubRunner, this information can be found in the Club Dashboard. Simply click on the Membership tab on the Admin page and then on the dashboard link.
 
Is the number of members that left higher than the number of members that joined? A lower retention rate signifies a serious problem which could be due to a number of reasons.

Member satisfaction

Your members are bound to share their own experiences, club success stories, and what they like with prospective members. This can either excite prospective members to join creating your very own recruitment campaign or can cause these members to look elsewhere.
 
If your members are not happy, it won't take too long for prospective members to catch on. Regardless of the benefits your club can offer, it is common to give member experience to a higher value, which means that the dynamics of your club are weak, prospective members will not be keen to join.
 
How can you gauge satisfaction? Low retention rates are not the only way to notice a decline in member satisfaction. Some members may not choose to leave the club but may very well spread negativity. 

Just like in the workplace, it is important to touch base with all members to listen to their opinions, understand their expectations and gauge their satisfaction. To do so:
  • create a satisfaction survey and email it to all members
  • hand a survey out during a meeting and allow members to fill it in anonymously should they choose
  • make it a topic of discussion at your next meeting (what do members like, dislike, etc.)

Club workflow

Are prospective members made to feel welcome at open houses? Are new members made to feel welcome? Do you have a set procedure in place to welcome prospective members? New members?
 
Consider creating a workflow of everything that must be followed to ensure that onboarding is done according to your set guidelines.  This is the most important stage in growing your membership. If members are not trained to onboard new and prospective members, then it is possible that these potential members will feel as though they are simply not welcome.
  • Create new member duties using the New Member Program in ClubRunner
  • Assign tasks to least three to four members to onboard the new member
    • Ex: Introduce all club members - assigned to Tony Baker; New member presentation - assigned to Holly Brookshaw, etc.
  • Check out the membership development plans available on Rotary.org
Satisfied members are more than happy to mentor new members and share the clubs success stories with others and are proud to be evangelists. Their attitude creates a positive atmosphere in the club which is appealing and welcoming and as such, recruiting new members actually becomes easier. 
 
Essentially, it all comes down to perception. How is your current membership holding up? What do members think of the club? What do they have to say about it? How is your club perceived by non-members?
 
If your own members are not participating in club activities and your goals aren't being met, it's time to look invest in retention before anything else.