Some tidbits from Make More Money from Members article

I have been interested in membership development and more particularly membership retention for a long time. I started talking about this issue in 2000 by preparing a talk for Main Street managers for Illinois Main Street when I was suburban coordinator there.

I agreed to write an article for Main Street News (the monthly newsletter of the National Trust Main Street Center) on this topic, which has allowed me to go back and review my material and up date it for the new ways of the Internet.

In the intervening eight years there has been a lot more written about member retention, particularly by those in the professional association field.

Recent statistics on retention

Several articles kept talking about new member retention being miserable. Statistics I found varied from 70 or 55 percent of members renew. New members, those in the organization for less than one year, were likely to renew at 50 percent or less. This is sobering.

Asking for gifts more often

Several text books on fundraising for non profits talk about mining the membership list for additional gifts each year. I know this to be true. When we were members of the Art Institute of Chicago we were solicited at least six times a year for one thing or another, this of course is in addition to our membership renewal.

Several well known publications recommend asking for additional gifts at least 10-12 times a year. I find this excessive. Local grass roots organizations might consider asking quarterly at the very least, but most especially at the year end for annual gifts. If the bulk of your membership renews in November or December, then annual gifts would not be appropriate, but gifts at the end of your fiscal year if it was say June 30 would make sense.

Revising your membership levels yearly

This seems like a no brainer, but apparently in the professional association world, people do not change their membership categories often at all. This is an opportunity wasted I think. A few categories should be increased each year if nothing else than to reflect inflation. How much to increase each category is another issue. Studies by professional associations showed that increases under ten percent created little push back from members. So you could indeed make more money from members by asking for $30 rather than $25 for an individual membership, and hardly anyone would know.

People who pledge are more generous

This also seems like a no brainer, but so few downtown organizations ask people to automatically give to their cause. Many Main Street organizations start out with three year pledges to build a base of support so they can get off the ground. But after that period they return to the once a year renewal. Why? Here their members have given for three full years. Why not offer them the opportunity to automatically give every year to the organization? All it takes is one check mark on the application form. The donation amount does not need to be big, but the monthly impact can be exceptional.

For example, if your bottom line donation is $40 for an individual that would mean a donation of $4.00 a month (total $48 a year). Why not ask for $5.00 as the minimum donation, so that you would reap $60 a year? You can take check (have them send a voided check and you will take care of the rest with their bank), or credit card. Just remember to actually bill the member on a regular basis, say 15th of the month. Apparently Greenpeace now has a minimum donation of $15 a month which yields $180. They say they have slightly fewer members but more highly committed ones. This is also the lowest level they accept as a donation. Think about that.

Why not consider a lower price point for seniors and students too? It is a good entry for those that want to support your cause but short on funds.

Finally, use the Internet as a 24/7 tool for membership recruitment

Some folks use PayPal or Network for Good as a third party processor for their memberships. renewals or events on their web site. If you have a very large operation, you might want to build your own shopping cart on your web site. There is plenty of functionality for these and other third party credit card processing sites. All process cards for the typical merchant fee, and donations are recorded into the merchant account you set up. There is an excellent article on the web that compares all the third party systems that nonprofits are using on Idealist. com .

Here is one good article
http://www.idealware.org/donations/intro.php

Another article is excellent too
http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/FAQ/QuestionViewer/default?section=16&item=23

Regardless what you chose, make sure that the donor and member understands that you have a privacy policy about not sharing their information (make sure they can find it on your web site) and that you (if you build your own) have the most sophisticated encryption possible. Both of these will register with donors and show that you are a responsible nonprofit organization.

Please let me know about your experiences.