Tuesday Buzz: Boost Your Membership Renewals

With the end of the year approaching, many association members will soon be weighing whether or not to renew their membership.

Since renewal isn’t guaranteed, organizations must also remember to engage with this group of current members.

Association expert Dennis Bozzi knows this and has compiled a list of tips  (opens in a new tab) to help organizations keep their members content and paid up for another year.

Dividing membership lists, for example, can be a helpful way to start organizing your processes and brainstorming ideas. By giving individual staff members responsibility for parts of your membership list, you can get more of your team thinking about engagement and how to improve member attitudes and visibility.

Bozzi also suggests distributing a letter that not only explains the organization’s benefits but also asks members to suggest improvements for the coming year. And having the CEO or director’s signature is an added bonus that can go a long way toward enticing members to renew.

Above all, Bozzi recommends making members feel important.

“It is NEVER a privilege for an organization to be allowed to be one of your members,” he explains. “It is ALWAYS the other way around.”

For more tips, see the entire list here  (opens in a new tab).

Tweet of the Day:

https://t.co/7R4u5IjGj5  (opens in a new tab) goes open source and gets a desktop app https://t.co/mjnEOWlym6  (opens in a new tab)

— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) November 24, 2015  (opens in a new tab)

WordPress announced a big offering for Mac users today, with the launch of a new desktop app  (opens in a new tab) that can help anyone managing an association’s WordPress site.

Other Good Reads:

Opening science to all, one class at a time. See how one nonprofit is working to help give girls an even playing field in STEM classes,  (opens in a new tab) via the Houston Chronicle.

A not-so-secret society’s membership rolls. See which famous historical figures were members of the Freemasons society  (opens in a new tab)—the organization’s records from 1733 to 1923 have been revealed.

How can you brew successful PR? Entrepreneur Contributor Scott Willyerd explains  (opens in a new tab) what organizations can learn from the recent Starbucks holiday cup “scandal.”

(chochowy/ThinkStock)