Churn is a really big issue for associations—one that can cause major problems down the line.

As my colleague Joe Rominiecki noted in a recent article, avoiding churn is important, as it means you won’t have to invest nearly as much in recruitment.

But what’s the best approach? Rominiecki repeatedly talks about onboarding in his piece, and on Aptify’s blog, inbound marketing manager Tony Cavicchi discusses some of the elements of a solid onboarding strategy.

“Your new member has just paid you her money—which means she is more willing to pay you attention (than ever before, or after),” Cavicchi explains. “Your new member also has the highest stock of goodwill toward your association and will be the most receptive to hearing from you.”

Cavicchi’s piece is useful as a way to look at onboarding in the full scheme of the lifecycle, as well as how to ask yourself how to get started. Check out the full post here.

Tackling the Ad-Blocker Problem

Much like advertisers as a whole, Facebook isn’t happy with ad blockers, finding them problematic on desktop platforms in particular.

But rather than simply stopping ad blockers, the company is attempting to meet social networkers halfway by giving them options for what marketing info they see. There’s both a carrot and a stick to this strategy in that Facebook users will be able to select which topic categories and businesses they don’t want to see ads for, but they will not be able to circumvent advertisements altogether with ad-blocking software.

“When we asked people about why they used ad-blocking software, the primary reason we heard was to stop annoying, disruptive ads,” said Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s VP for its ads and business platform. “As we offer people more powerful controls, we’ll also begin showing ads on Facebook desktop for people who currently use ad-blocking software.”

Will less-annoying ads be enough to satisfy those who turn to software to block them?

Other Links of Note

Let’s talk check boxes. On Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog, Kivi Leroux Miller explains the pluses and minuses of putting opt-out check boxes on your forms.

Does your organization need a transparency report? If it puts out a lot of user-generated content, it might be a good idea. Here’s how the Wikimedia Foundation handles it.

Olympics food for thought: Nonprofit Quarterly shares an essay on whether the International Olympic Committee should change its business model to reflect shifts in the popularity of hosting the games.

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