Member
Engagement: Foster Communities of Reciprocity
By
Ed Rigsbee, CSP
(776
words)
When
your members are actively engaged in your association or society, there
are two important benefits to the organization. First is what usually
comes to mind—member retention. Second, might not be so top of mind and
that is member recruitment. When a member is enthusiastically engaged, he
or she will aggressively talk about the organization to colleagues,
suppliers and customers. There is no better source for member recruitment,
which will have the follow-up member assimilation factor included, then
member evangelists.
Fostering
communities of reciprocity within your organization is the number one most
important activity of association and society leaders and paid staff for
encouraging high-level member engagement. However, there are frequently
self-generated internal control issues that can easily squelch this kind
of valuable participation. If a particular community is not, an
association officially sanctioned and developed community, the leadership
can all too easily consider the community a threat, menace, or danger to
the organization’s traditional power structure. This is truly a
disappointment to mature organizational value seekers.
Member
Generated
There
are no better organizational communities of reciprocity than the ones that
are member founded. While these communities are all too frequently feared
by the ensconced organizational leadership, they are nevertheless conduits
of high member value. Dynamic individuals drive the creation of
communities that they want, need, and desire.
If
a contingent of your members want a particular community and develop it,
they will value it and remain engaged as long as the community delivers
value to them. It would only be a low-esteem, paranoid personality that
would want to squelch this kind of community participation. Association
leadership must embrace these emerging communities or chance the
repercussion of member anger and drop-off.
Since
these members generated communities deliver additional organizational
value to members, association and society leaders really should be looking
to put in place strategy and tactics that foster these communities rather
than try to limit them. Frequently, geographical communities can evolve
into formal “chapter” structure far quicker and more successfully than
can or does organization developed structure.
Organization
Generated
As
I mentioned earlier, control is one of the primary reasons that
organizational leadership will squelch member generated communities in
favor of official organization created communities. Organizational created
communities are fine and can deliver high levels of value if created for
the correct reasons; primarily to deliver additional value to members. If
revenue generation is the primary organizational driver, the communities
have a higher propensity for failure.
Organizational
created communities must serve the needs of members rather than the needs
of the organization. There
also is the important challenge of relevance. Since member created
communities are relevant to member needs, organizational created
communities must do the same. The challenge with surveying members using
an online system like Survey Monkey to determine wanted communities is
that all to often members will state, give me this—and when created by
the organization, the members never participate. This is because they have
no skin in the game. Then association leaders surmise that members really
do not want the communities.
Better,
is for association leaders and staff to listen intently to off-handed
remarks made by members during a variety of events and when enough members
make a similar remark about a needed community—build that. This method
is much more effective than the traditional leadership structure saying,
“We need X, Y or Z” and then going out and building those communities
without a champion.
Organization
Assisted
Regarding
a community that I personally built, even though the entrenched leadership
of a particular association continually tried to kill the community; my
good friend, W. Mitchell, frequently said to me, “The market decides.”
With this in mind, the leadership could have and should have embraced a
community being developed that gave scores of members an additional reason
to attend the annual convention but fear of absolute control paralyzed any
thoughts of collaboration, much less cooperation. Is this what you want?
A
valuable hybrid approach will generally serve most organizations and their
members well. This is where member generated communities are encouraged
and assisted through a flexible support system put in place by the board
of directors and administrated by the organization’s staff.
My
urging to all association and society leaders, volunteer or paid, is to
embrace communities of reciprocity that sprout within and around your
organization. These communities should not be feared but rather embraced,
nourished, and encouraged. The natural byproduct is additional perceived
value your members will experience from membership in your organization,
additional reasons to be engaged, and the organic development of member
evangelists, singing the praises of your organization. Gosh, isn’t that
so much better than animosity, distrust, and ambivalence?
Copyright
© 2011 Ed Rigsbee
#
# #
Ed
Rigsbee, CSP, is an internationally recognized expert on business
partnering and strategic alliances. He has authored three books and over
2,000 articles on organizational collaborations. He travels
internationally delivering keynote presentations and multi-day workshops
for corporate and non-profit audiences. Ed has received the coveted Certified
Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers
Association, one that is enjoyed by only about 10% of the membership in
the Global Speakers Federation.
As
Chief Member Evangelist at Rigsbee Research Consulting Group, he is
frequently engaged by trade associations and professional societies to
facilitate board strategic retreats, conduct organic member recruitment
campaigns, and help associations to determine their ROI quotient through
his proprietary, Member Value
ProcessTM.
Additionally, he serves as the Executive Director of the Cigar PEG,
Inc., (US Internal Revenue Service recognized 501 (c)(3) non-profit public charity).
Rigsbee may be contacted through www.rigsbee.com
or Ed@Rigsbee.com.
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