Membership

Daily Buzz: Nailing Membership Onboarding

Membership can’t grow if your onboarding process is ineffective. The MemberClicks blog breaks down what you should be doing to make members stay. Also: learning trends to incorporate today.

What does the onboarding process in your organization look like? The better the onboarding, the more likely members are to engage in the organization—and the more likely they’ll want to stay. But if you neglect new members’ needs, how can you expect them to get involved enough to want to stick around?

Before any onboarding begins, talk to current members about what resources would have been helpful when they joined the organization. Based on their insights, develop an onboarding plan that includes the MemberClicks blog’s three onboarding musts.

For example, start with welcoming them—both in word and in physical form. Send a welcome packet with necessary introduction materials they can use as a launchpad into your organization. But don’t let the communication stop there: Keep in touch regularly to build a habit of engagement from the get-go, and introduce them to other members, as these forged connections are likely to be what keeps them involved.

How Do You Learn?

Because people learn in different ways, it can be a challenge to figure out the best formats for delivering professional development programs to your members. Although there’s a lot of talk about up-and-coming learning trends, it turns out that many tried-and-true learning tactics that associations lean on are just as popular and effective as ever. From instructor-led trainings to microlearning and gamification, the Omnipress blog highlights the learning approaches that actually work.

Other Links of Note

Lumping together different donor segments alienates all audiences. It might be more harmful than not segmenting at all, says the Bloomerang blog.

Is your work culture “allergic” to some processes? Fast Company outlines how to boost immunity to increase your organization’s health.

(sculpies/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Jeff Hsin

By Jeff Hsin

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