The Membership Project

Megan Griffith's presentation at the recent NCVO conference on membership schemes aimed to spark some discussion among those at our workshop - and we weren't disappointed. Here's some of the key issues reported back from group discussion, transcribed from the flip charts by Simon Berry. The groups were asked to consider:

• What do you think are some of the major challenges and opportunities facing membership organisations in the 21st century?
  

and

• What might your membership scheme look like in 5 years time?

Simon has grouped the responses:  read more »

I thought I'd share my comments from yesterday's conference at NCVO. I was talking about the RSA's experiences in renewing itself as a membership organisation that's fit for purpose in the 21stC.  read more »

I wrote this think piece as the basis of a presentation on the drivers shaping the future of membership, for the NCVO membership schemes conference on the 22 April.

Individuals are affirming themselves as individual agents
Individual freewill and autonomy have become important social values. This individualism, although often associated with selfishness, also links to growing notions of self-reliance and personal responsibility. A linked trend is the decline in deference; our willingness to accept without question what those in authority say has declined.

Our identities and how we express them is more complex  read more »

Conversations at today's conference on membership confirmed what a big stretch membership covers, from providing infomation, advice, a voice, networking opportunities, through to the development of collaborative projects between staff and members. Each activity will require different communications, marketing and engagement approaches.  read more »

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I wonder if I haven't missed something vital.

 We have web2 which is going to afford freedoms, collaboration, sharing, democratic voice.  I love everything about this.  It fills me with optimism because this vision is based on a wonderful model of humanity - favouring and drawing on its best aspects.  read more »

Over the next couple of days we have the NCVO Membership Schemes Conference, followed by a team meeting ... so there will be a lot more here by the end of the week.
However, just to recap, the aim of the project is "to explore changes the social web and other factors may bring to groups and organisations ... and to "belonging" in a networked society".

As Simon Berry summarised here we see three strands of work emerging:  read more »

Just a really quick post before leaving - no time for a pic to liven things up.

 But I just came across a post by Ewan McIntosh about BECTA research  showing that young people aren't all proficiently using or have equal access to web2.0 technology, as it is sometimes assumed.

I would think the same applies to any audience you could mention. Just thought it was worth the point that while web2.0 technology has an awful lot to offer membership organisations they shouldn't assume that using them to recruit / retain necessarily speaks to as diverse an audience as they would hope.

Came across this blog post this morning which perhaps casts an interesting light on the role of organisation (as a verb and a noun):  read more »