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!