Recruiting and Retaining Membership Recruiting Is Only The First Step Copyright 2013 School...

Recruiting and Retaining Membership

Recruiting Is OnlyThe First Step

Copyright 2013 School Nutrition Association

[Speaker name + event name here][Presentation date here]

Recruiting


Potential members won’t join if they don’t know about SNA

Member testimony is the most powerful recruiting tool

Satisfied members are your best recruiters

Recruiting must be ongoing

Membership Committee

• Essential for effective recruitment and retention

• Include chair, chapter representatives, manager, new employee and industry representative

• Committee members assigned to specific tasks:

RecruitingWelcomingRe-RecruitingRetaining


Lead by Example

•Recruiting is everyone’s responsibility

•Leaders must be actively involved in the recruitment of members. •Leaders must have an understanding of potential members wants and needs for recruitment to be successful.

•Leaders must be constantly aware of the concerns and issues that face members



• Never assume that new members know what their benefits are• Communicate benefits to members and instruct them on

how to access them• Show an interest in your members• Engage members ASAP


Bottom line? Be enthusiastic and energetic about what you do, why you do it, and whom you do it for, and you’ll draw

people in with little effort.


To retain members, you have to make sure they see and experience value from the association

•Members really aren’t members until their needs have been realized and they are engaged and made to feel comfortable

•New members must become informed and engaged right away, or they are at risk of not renewing


Member Retention

• It is much easier to recruit a new member than it is to retain one•Member-to-member

communication is the most effective retention tool•Members must be nurtured

to be retained• Remind them often of what

their benefits are and how to access them.


Welcoming Committee

• Have committee members at every event to welcome new folks and make them feel comfortable

•Whenever possible, introduce new member to one other person

• It’s intimidating and uncomfortable to walk into an event full of people you don’t know and try to fit in

• Remember your first event?



• Both new and old members are vulnerable if they are left to sit alone or not made to feel welcome

• A member with a negative experience is likely to tell four others of the bad experience. You risk not only losing that new member, but four other potential members

• A member with a positive experience is only likely to tell one other person of that experience


Re-Recruit • Follow up with the new member within a

month by phone or email• Have a script that can be repurposed and customized • Ask them:

If they have needs or concerns that aren’t being metWhat benefits they are taking

advantage ofHow membership has assisted them in

their job

• Remind them why they joined


Survey Membership

•Members lives, concerns, responsibilities and priorities are constantly changing.

• Post member surveys on your website where members can access and give you feedback at their leisure

• Valuable information can be gathered in just a few minutes through surveys.


Survey Membership

• Posting surveys on your web site is a cost effective and efficient tool to keep you informed of what members current needs, concerns and satisfaction level is

• Surveys help to guide your planning for new services as well as improving on current services

• Surveys show members that leadership is listening, acknowledging and addressing their concerns and input


Survey Membership

Some of the information that you can obtain about membership through surveys:

Demographic InformationTheir level of satisfactionTheir reasons for renewingWhat’s important to themServices they would likeInterests



• Save the information from surveys in a data base to refer back to

•Members feel empowered when they see that their association leaders are listening and taking direction from their input

• Empowered, satisfied and engaged members are your pipeline of future volunteers


Lapsed Members

• It is crucial that members that failed to renew be contacted. Personal contact by a satisfied enthusiastic member is a very effective way to get members to renew

• A member who doesn’t renew because of poor service is a walking testimony against the association. Finding out why a member didn’t renew gives us the opportunity to assuage negative feelings.


Even if the member still isn’t convinced to renew, a conciliatory gesture may prevent them from expressing

negative thoughts to others

Recruiting and Retaining Membership Recruiting Is Only The First Step Copyright 2013 School...

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