The Membership Project

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 »

Following on from my last post, it might also be interesting to look at how membership is changing by looking at membership data - so, membership numbers and who members are, length of membership etc. etc. Organisations will not want to share this data without clear benefits - so we could help them to benchmark themselves against other similar organisations. Certain analysis could be available only to participating organisations, whilst other analysis could be published more widely. We could use a pledgebank model to encourage enough organisations to sign up.

A good way to help people think about what the future might look like, say in 10 years, is to ask them to look backwards over the same period - the point is to emphasise how fast things can change. So... if we want to tell stories about what membership may look like in 10 years time, it might be nice to publish some stories about how membership has changed over the last 10 years. I'm thinking about a set of case studies based on in-depth qualititative interviews with a range of membership organisations. Perhaps after taking them through a reflective process we could also help them think about the drivers shaping the future (using the membership game?) and write help them write some stories about what that might look like.

Hi

I created a blog post and added tags that didn't already exist (funding and data). But these havn't appeared under tags on the RHS. Should they? How will people find my post, except through what's new?

Ta

Megan

Funding, as always, is essential!

One thing we discussed is the potential of using a pledgebank model. Eg

We will do x if y number of people will contribute z

x can be the various packages of work

z will need to include money, but may also be about time or data, eg

'We will publish research into the changing patterns of membership of voluntary organisations, if 30 organisations will each contribute £500 and share data on their membership levels over the last 20 years'

or  read more »

Hi all

I'd like to think about ways to turn all the excellent ideas generated in this project into something that membership organisations can use as a way into thinking about the future. One way to do that could be to publish an introductory pocket guide to the future of membership. We have an existing series of these things, they are called Future Focus, and having spent a long time working out the best format and style we think they work really well. Each one sets the scene then takes the reader through six drivers - 'forces or trends that could positively or negatively shape the future of your organisation'.  read more »