Develop Your Membership: Make a Plan!

August is Membership Month. Now that the Rotary year is beginning to settle in with new officers and leaders at the helm, it is a great time to make more progress to develop membership in your club. Developing a written plan and getting it done is critical to a successful year for your club.

Our meetings are a great place to get to know each other.

When we talk about membership development we usually think of the broad categories of Attraction (bringing in new members), Engagment (making sure that ALL of our members are engaging to get what they desire out of Rotary), and Retention (a product of being an attractive and engaging club). In the broader sense, membership development is simply about building great relationships with our fellow Rotarians, and sharing our Rotary experience with others. Membership development is the glue that binds our clubs together into fun, productive and stable units.

At the Membership Seminar held this month, a short and ready made plan for enhancing membership development in your club was presented. To view the entire plan, click the link below:

Quick Start Membership Development Plan

The plan is divided into three time frames, NOW, 30 Days, and 90 Days. A few examples of the NOW action items are:

1. Identify all of your new members (24 months or less)
2. Reach out to them and identify or clarify their interests and expectations from membership.
3. Start "New Members Letters" (for more on this, click this link: here)

What a great place to start. Members in your club for two years or less are the most vulnerable to dropping out. 

A few of the 30 day items are:

1. Review and update your club website and or Facebook page.
2. All members develop and practice how they would ask a prospective member to come to a meeting.
3. Assign a greeter, and establish protocols for making all feel warmly welcomed.

By 90 days the results will start to show if the plan is being implemented.

1. Members have learned more about each other, and laid the groundwork for stronger friendships.
2. Guests/visitors consistently feel welcome to the club meetings.
3. All members are engaged with an assignment.

Develop a plan for this year and put it into action!

Use this plan to get a start on a great year in your club! Remember, this is a great way to get a quick start, and then later develop some more action items to enhance the plan and develop membership.

That's All! 

Is your "Elevator Speech" ready?

One of the key aspects of membership development is getting prospective new members interested. Often we stumble into an opportunity when someone asks us: "What is Rotary?" (Maybe they saw that pin that you always wear so proudly.) When the opportunity arises, it is very important to have a short, succinct, and accurate answer to this proverbial question. The answer must also include our personal "Why" of Rotary membership.

Often, caught unprepared, we may expound on the internationality of Rotary, the size and scope of our service, or that we meet every week and eat together. None of these are particularly good at catching someone's interest in 15 to 30 seconds. So, first ask yourself: why did you join and what keeps you coming back? If you are like many Rotarians, the two most cited reasons that people join are for the networking and friendship, and to make their LOCAL communities a better place for all. About 75% of Rotarians joined (and stay) for these reasons.

Rotarian Michael Angelo Caruso

Jim Henry, a Rotarian from Florida, says that your response must address your club's "target audience" of business, professional, and community leaders. If they are in one of these categories, your club would most likely benefit from their membership. So, what is Rotary?  Henry's approach would be to answer: "Rotary is a network of active and retired business, professional, and community leaders, committed to making our community a better place to live." If the person who is asking is an active or retired business, professional or community leader who cares about your community, they will probably ask for more information.

Rotarian Michael Angelo Caruso customizes his "elevator speech" for specific target audiences. He simply
says: "Rotary is the best decision I ever made!" That certainly will spark interest in almost anyone. Play the video below for more from Michael on his intriguing "elevator speech".

So, the key points are to prepare yourself, think of your "target audience", and be ready to respond in a way that will stimulate further interest and discussion when the right person asks you: "So what is Rotary, anyway?" There is nothing worse than to have someone ask and your response is: "ummmmm..."

That's All!

Woody

Engage Your New Members

Engagement is the key to developing and retaining great Rotary members. Engagement shows them you care, and helps them build a habit of participation with you and your club. It really is the glue of retention!

Engagement is the key to growing great Rotarians and future
club leaders.

There is a new tool that DG Vicki has put together for your use on our website. There are a total of 12 letters all written and ready for you to fill in the blanks and customize. The letters are intended to engage and help orient new members. They are designed to be mailed to a new member weekly (or whatever interval you decide) to help inform and welcome them to your Rotary club, based on the belief that new Rotarians benefit from understanding the basic tenants of Rotary, as well as specific information about your club. This is a fabulous tool! Imagine how your recently inducted member will feel about your club after receiving these letters. You can get your club secretary involved to help you, or appoint a member of your committee to
accomplish this important task. Here is the first one as an example:

Dear new member:

Congratulations on your acceptance to membership in the Rotary Club of Downtown Metro.  It is with great pleasure that every member of our Club welcomes you to this Rotary Club and to our International Organization.

This is the first in a series of twelve letters that you will receive weekly to convey important elements concerning Rotary, its purpose and mission.  We ask that you give careful attention in your reading of the letters to help you understand more about Rotary and to assist you in engaging in the activities of our Club and Organization.

You have been invited to membership because your Sponsor recognized you as a person of good character and reputation, a leader in your profession. a leader in the community and saw in you the “heart of service”.  Although you have been invited to join Rotary, it will be through your own actions that you become a Rotarian—a term that means much more than just being a member of a Rotary club.

The first thing we ask is that you attend the Club meetings each week.  In this way, you will have the best opportunity to meet the other Club members and learn about the activities of our Club.  Each of our members will make an effort to make you feel welcome, will to get to know you and then we ask that you also do your part.  Plan to participate in the weekly meetings as a greeter so that you can become familiar with the other members.  Sit at different tables each week to enhance your exposure to more members.  Volunteer to sell raffle tickets at the door, or to take notes for the weekly newsletter.

There is no probationary period in Rotary.  You are a Rotarian, just like every other Rotarian in our Club or in the world.  First names are the custom that denotes we are all equals in Rotary.  Reach out your hand in friendship to all the other members and introduce yourself.  The members will be interested in learning about you, your profession, your family and your hobbies. Through this interaction, you will also get to know each of our members.

Personal acquaintance and friendship are the cornerstones of Rotary and attendance at each meeting is very important to our Organization.  Rotary meetings are held each week and you are expected to attend at least 50% of the time.  Greater attendance is encouraged because the absence of any member deprives the Club of the value of our diversified membership, contributions of all members to ongoing club projects and the personal fellowship of each member.  You will find that you miss a lot when you miss one of our meetings!

Please speak to me, or to any of the other Rotarians in our Club, with any questions.  I look forward to seeing you at this week’s meeting.

Yours in Rotary Service,

Club President

Think of the impact that receiving these letters would have had on you when you first joined! Make sure you customize them to fit your club, and start engaging your new members right away.

You can download copies of these letters from our membership development section of the district website, or at the following link:

12 Letters

That's All!

Woody

Retention: How is your club doing?

Retention is a word we all hear when discussing Rotary membership. I thought I understood what it meant until I was tasked with calculating it for my club. Most of us understand that the "retention rate" is essentially the percentage of club members who stay in the club (as opposed to terminating their membership). However there are several questions and assumptions that must be made before you can do any calculating.

• What time period are you going to use?
• Do you want to know the percentage of  "new members" that stay with the club?
• How about the percentage of existing members that hang in there?
• Why should we care?

I'll start with the last question first: why should we care? When I was club President in 2001, Rotary touted 1.2 million members in round numbers. Today, we are still at 1.2 million members world wide. However, it may surprise you that over that period we inducted about 1.2 million new members! So, 1.2 million members left Rotary over that time frame! We had essentially ZERO growth even though we added over a million members world wide. So, getting people to join is something we are pretty good at, but we are losing members as fast as we can replace them.

Family friendly meetings and events can really improve
retention rates!

In District 5190, we have lost over 1,600 members since July 1, 2008. That means that the equivalent of 63% of our current membership has left the Rotary fold over the last 5 years. The story is similar (and sometimes worse) for many clubs.

But retention is the percentage of members who STAY over a given period of time. So we must first set the time we want to evaluate. It's a good idea to use more than just one year so you can get a feel for what is happening in the club. RI recommends using 3 to 5 years of data.

Besides the time period, it is useful to understand how well your club retains new members versus existing members. This is because there may be different reasons influencing these two rates of retention. Figuring out the existing member retention rate is straight forward. Your starting number is the existing membership at the start, your ending number is the number of those same members who are still in the club. You divide the remaining (retained) members by your start number, and multiply by 100 to convert to a percentage.

Here's an example of a Retention Model that gives valuable
information about your club.

Let's say we start with 27 members, and 8 leave the club. That leaves 19 of the original members still chowing down lunch on Thursdays. Nineteen divided by 27 times 100 equals 70 percent. That is your existing member retention rate.

The math is the same for new members. However your starting number is the total number of inductees during the period in question. You subtract the number of new members who didn't make it through the period before they drifted away, then divide by the start number. 

So, let's say that during the same period, we inducted a total of 5 new members, but 2 of them just didn't seem to "take". That leaves only 3 of the new members in the club. Divide 3 by the 5 total inductees and multiply by 100 to get a retention rate of 60 percent.

You will be surprised to look at your club's data. By examining this information you can assist in putting together a plan that will help address the problem in your club. To make it easy for you, your club's data for the period July 1, 2010 to July 1, 2013 can be found by clicking on the following link: 

District 5190 Club Retention Data 

Also, to assist you in evaluating your club's retention rates, a blank "Retention Model" form similar to the illustration above, can be accessed at the following link:

Retention Model Form

Finally, some additional historical information about your club's membership over this same time period can be found here:

3 Year Club Membership History

With this information you can perform a valuable service to your club. Look it over, make the calculations and share the information with your board. Brainstorm ideas to address retention issues. We need to increase our rates of retention significantly (let's shoot for 85% or above in both categories!) if we are to grow Rotary so that it we can do even more good in our communities, and the world!

That's All!

Woody

We Must Care!

A strong membership program makes a club more stable and resilient. It works both ways, strong resilient clubs are that way because they are meeting the needs of their members at a high level. This gives them a great retention rate, and makes them attractive to new members. In order to develop and institutionalize a strong membership program, we must care about the well being of the club. It takes planning and work, but will pay off big time.

A program developed in District 5170 a while back, is aptly named the "We Care" program. This program is a well thought out process to energize your club. It is totally compatible with the Ignite program, and if you use it as a guide, you will score major points on the Ignite score-sheet. You can find the program on our District website under Membership Development. I thought I would include an excerpt on how to treat new members here for you.

The Rotary Club of Reno is a large club that must continually
work on membership development.

First, on the very day (or before) a new member is inducted, the club should assign him/her two or three Rotarians that will be mentors. The mentors must understand that they are the key to insuring that the new member enjoys Rotary.

A mentor’s job will consist of inviting new members to sit with them at meetings. Make sure that the new member is introduced to each member at the table. By involving new members in conversation at the table they will feel more like they are part of the club. Generally most individuals are shy and they need help meeting new friends. Remember, the quicker we can make our new members comfortable, the more receptive they will be, which will result in making a happier and more productive future Rotarian.

A mentor must take the initiative to invite new members to all District and Club events. A personal invitation by phone always gives a feeling of caring and warmth. Take time during the phone conversation to explain what the event is about. This helps create interest from the new member. At the actual event follow up with more information so the new member understands more completely why it’s important to attend the event and what the objective of the event is.

Immediately assign the new member to a committee that provides interaction
with other club members. This assignment should give them a sense of accomplishment but shouldn't be so difficult that it becomes a burden that in turn leaves a negative attitude about Rotary. The committee should also help build camaraderie.

Always give the new Rotarians avenues to meet members quickly. The quickest way is to ask them to be club greeter. Make sure that other Rotarians who are familiar with the entire membership are assigned to work by their side. You must direct the Rotarian to make a conscious effort to introduce the new member to all Rotarians attending the meeting.

These two Winnemucca Rotarians are checking up on
their "Buddies" who missed last week before their meeting
starts.

If members miss two meetings make sure that a club representative calls them to find out why they missed. Make sure that they are told that the club missed them and be sure not to create a feeling of reprimand.

Each month new Rotarians should be met with, and casually talked to, regarding their feelings about Rotary. Ask them what they would change or modify if they had the opportunity. As our clubs age we seem to get tunnel vision. This is a great opportunity to get new ideas and input. It will also provide an indication whether the new member is enjoying Rotary and if they want to remain a member. All negative feelings must be reported to your membership committee and your club Board of Directors, so that remedial action can be considered.

Remember, "New Members" are those that have been in the club for 2 or three years or less. Statistics show that these are the most likely to leave the club. Don't fall into the trap and take new members (or any members) for granted. How long was it before you really got bitten by the "Rotary Bug"?

In the last 6 years our District has said goodbye to 1,655 Rotarians! Just think what more effort at better retention would have done for your club, the people in your community and around the world!

That's All!

Woody

Treat Your Members as Customers!

Sad Story: How many times have you brought in that new member only to see them leave within a few years? Unfortunately this is all to common. Our highest attrition rate in Rotarians is within the first two years. It is not unusual to find clubs that have said goodbye to enough new members over the last 5 years to DOUBLE THEIR CLUB SIZE. 

Members as Customers: You can stop the revolving door by treating your members as a successful business treats its customers. How many highly successful businesses operate by simply assuming that new customers are totally satisfied, and will forever keep coming back? Not many. We need to know what our current membership wants, and then have the courage to make changes in the club to satisfy those "customers".

Surveys and Assessments: Member Surveys and assessments can be a useful tool to make sure your club is serving your members' needs. The RI Annual Member Involvement Appraisal is one such tool. Another is the RI Member Satisfaction Questionnaire. Using either or both of these tools is a great idea, and scores big points on your Ignite Score sheet. You can also host informal discussions, or create "member focus groups". The key here is to find out what will engage your members and develop them into strong and committed Rotarians. Be sure to involve former members of your club as well.

Implement the changes: The hard work is to actually take action in your club to adapt to the needs of your members. We all to often blame new club members for dropping out. "They just weren't cut out for Rotary" or "They just didn't fit in." My favorite is: "They were just here for business networking". Vocational Service is one of the Five Avenues of Service! I know I joined for networking, and I was successful in that first Rotary endeavor. It wasn't until after that, that I caught the Service bug! Bottom line is that your club needs to make the difficult leadership decisions that are necessary to adapt the club to the changing needs of its members.

Make it worth their while: People have a limited amount of time, and as a Rotary club we are competing for that time. You must make your club worth their while. So meeting the needs of your newest members (customers) is crucial. Just like a business wants to ensure its new customers are satisfied so they will keep coming back, you can ensure that your new members are satisfied, so they stick around and have the chance to grow into great Rotarians of the future!

That's All!

Woody

Halfway There!

Welcome District 5190 Membership Chairs! This new Membership Blog is designed to keep you up to date on membership ideas, issues, activities, and program elements that will keep your club stable and growing. There is just so much going on in the arena of Membership, that I think that it might be best to get it out in a little smaller "bite-sized" chunks. Of course a great resource is our District 5190 web site http://www.rotarydistrict5190.org/ . Any resources that I refer to in this blog will be found on our website under Membership Development.

We're Halfway There: Not only are we about halfway to our goal of a net gain of 100 new members, we are halfway through this Rotary year. Amazing how time flies, isn't it? Let's gear up and start the big push to end the year with success!

Update: Our current membership number for the District is showing as 2,503 active members on the Club Runner summary.  That's a gain of 60 from our July 1st SAR number. However, we need to intensify our focus for the second half of the year, especially our focus on retention. Last year we netted 8 new members district wide. We accomplished this by adding about 208 new members, and losing about 200! I know we can do better this year with increased effort and focus by you and your committee during the 2nd half of the year.

Ignite: This year fewer clubs are participating in the Ignite Membership Program. We need to turn this around. Last year we had 41 clubs attain "Premier" status in the program, with a total of 47 participating at some level. Premier clubs were very successful. They grew by an average of 4%, while non-Premier Clubs shrank by 2% on average. Please, if you are looking for a relatively easy way to "Ignite" your club membership, give me a call (530-906-2253) or email me (woody5190@gmail.com) for info. on implementation of the Ignite Program. We are flexible, and want this to work for you and your club.

Engage your new members: Engagement is the key to developing and retaining great Rotary members. Engagement shows them you care, and helps them build a habit of participation with you and your club. It really is the glue of retention! There is a new tool that DG Vicki has put together for your use on our website. There are a total of 12 letters all written and ready for you to fill in the blanks and customize. The letters are intended to engage and help orient new members. They are designed to be mailed to a new member weekly (or whatever interval you decide) to help inform and welcome them to your Rotary club, based on the belief that new Rotarians benefit from understanding the basic tenants of Rotary, as well as specific information about your club. This is a fabulous tool! Imagine how your recently inducted member will feel about your club after receiving these letters. You can get your club secretary involved to help you, or appoint a member of your committee to accomplish this important task. Click on the link below to go directly to the Membership Development page. (You might have to log in first.)

 http://portal.clubrunner.ca/50138/SitePage/membership

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more Membership information on this District 5190 Membership Blog!!

PDG Woody
D5190 Membership Chair