Why It’s Not Good Enough Just To Bring In New Members
One of the biggest conversations around Rotary these days is membership growth. There are quite a few stories flying around and all of them provide good advice. But there is a second topic that is as important, if not more so, than membership acquisition, and that is retention. What can we do to keep these members we have worked so hard to bring in?
Daniel Vankov, president of the Rotary Club of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia stated:
"My club did well in both membership growth and retention last year, receiving our district’s Errol Richardson Membership Development trophy, and one for membership retention, having not lost a single member over the previous year. As I began my year as club president, I naturally focused on growing our membership. In the first two months, I brought in two members, but we also lost two members. So no retention trophy this year! But more importantly, I realized I needed to discover what gives value back to our members. It is not good enough just to keep them busy."
The grim statistics suggest most clubs in Rotary lose 50 percent of their new members within a year, and another 25 percent within two to three years. Clubs typically want to do something about this but also do not want to undertake a monstrous effort or reinvent the wheel. So once approach taken by RC Brisbane was to look back on some things Rotary clubs have done in the past, dust a couple off and try them again.
First, RC Brisbane focused on vocational visits. But they put some thought into how to make sure they weren’t just boring their club members by having them sit in someone’s office listening to how their fellow member crunches numbers or browses the web. They thought hands-on would be a better way to go.
For their first vocational visit, RC Brisbane went to the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety — Queensland and drove in state-of-the-art driving simulators. Top researchers hosted club members and informed them on road safety research. Members enjoyed both their turn behind the wheel, and watching other members mess up. Members even went home with gift bags to remind them of the visit.
Of second focus for RC Brisbane was on leadership development. The club organized an outing with the Institute of Managers and Leaders for a seminar open to members and non-members alike. The key speaker was Tony Holmes, a past district governor and one of Australia’s top business builders. Members wanted to learn how Holmes went from being an army officer to a leading management consultant, and how he builds businesses all over Australia and internationally while living on a 22-acres property on the Sunshine Coast.
In the near future, RC Brisbane plans to put some other innovative ideas to work such as using virtual reality to build awareness for the dangers of driving under the influence.
Through all this, what RC Brisbane learnt was that membership retention is very much as important as member acquisition!
Their advice to clubs across the globe is to: "Encourage members to get involved for a more meaningful Rotary experience with the ideas in Connect for Good and other membership resources".