The Membership Project

Your points about creating projects to 'bestow' on others are very important.  I couldn't agree with you more on that.  A great many RSA projects are research based and these often inform the projects.  Where I think your open/closed argument is most valid is regarding Fellows who are 'social innovators' by profession, and to some degree they are looking for something fairly substantial through Fellowship, including possible financial support.  This could be via a third party.  It seems that this is possibly the area where the Fellow/Non Fellow, open/closed question becomes the most complicated?

Although the Third Sector is growing, I think that the RSA needs to be a bit cautious about opening the online platform widely at these early stages.  If they are valuing all the Fellow's capacities, which I believe they are, they need to ensure that Fellows are invited to participate in a safe space. At a Regional Dinner a couple of weeks ago I met a new Fellow aged 75.  He is an eco activist and farmer whose experience and determination are making him an effective social force.  He was going to get his assistant to talk him through how to use the Network's site.   

I liked how Daniel Taylor described change: "Change happens because of how we invest our human energy, and it always has since we came down from the trees.  Everyone's got a margin of discretionary energy - ten percent, twenty percent - that isn't used up making their way in the world.  That's the energy that's available for social change." 

In my view the RSA needs to inspire and guide those Fellows who want to participate with their 10-20%, but don't know how, as much as it needs to support those Fellows who are leading figures in social innovation.  

 Doesn't this lead back to Laura's point about volunteering time - in the RSA's case giving that time to developing RSA projects, and/or giving time to co-creating social projects 'out there'?

I know that the issue of open and closed access has been one of your major concerns David, and it is a very important issue indeed. I don't feel that I have a determined view of this at this stage, but I most often find myself favouring closed at the current time, purely on the basis that the online platforms are still so new to us all and the transparency is still uncomfortable for many people.

It is also likely that there is a tension within the RSA between benefiting from Fellow's intellectual resources to give real traction to very serious projects.... and ensuring that projects are informed by all the expert help possible both in and out of the Fellowship.

I wonder ultimately it doesn't concern different stages in a project's development and perhaps in that regard your suggestion of more help setting up alternative tools, but linked, is very relevant. The pattern is often to consult within the Fellowship initially and then extend this out using Fellow's external networks as things develop. This seems extremely sensible. Thus new people are drawn into the RSA through their interest in its activity.

What I have questioned on this issue is why someone who was involved in a project working with other RSA Fellows, benefiting from the value of that support resource wouldn't want to become a Fellow if invited/nominated? If part of the benefit of membership includes creating value within the networks this is ultimately going to be very difficult to do outside of that personal commitment?

The Fellows also have to be aware that financial accountability effects these types of decisions. The balance will always be that the subscriptions of the inactive majority will be used to support the active minority and if this increasingly includes non-Fellows this becomes uncomfortable, if not impossible.

Perhaps it is simple a need to create common space for early discussions?

I wonder if the RSA's vision doesn't make things even more complicated.  In one respect I am sure they are happy to remain as  subscription/member organisation for some, while for others they are encouraging volunteering in RSA projects.... but more vitally they are also encouraging and supporting members to volunteer outside of the organisation - in society more widely.

 In this way isn't the RSA embedding itself more effectively within society, rather than standing on its edge? Held together by the network of Fellows....

 When people ask me what the £130 is for I usually say 'to support the future'.

For nearly all the more charitable or interest based organisations membership as a rule includes generosity, in whatever form: support, money, time, effort, loyalty.

Thanks Laura for such an interesting discussion post! 

Thanks Michael for your response - big fan of your model.

Hi Sophia - I found this post very inspiring.

 What used to happen of course is that the 'strategy' was invisible and we would just marvel at the results.  I like very much the openness of this process at the RSA and I think it is an important aspect of its long term success. By understanding the ideas behind the actions it helps all the Fellows develop a more constructive perspective on time scales and developments.

I wish I had read this before writing elsewhere that I don't like the boat turning metaphor ..... but in my view the RSA is currently more like a rather exciting swirling animation of human thought, enthusiasm and goodwill! 

Thanks David for your interesting comment.  I am curious about the difference between members and customers and this definition seems important.  Customers seem to  people that buy your product or service and largely don't need to be connected to one another.  Members seem to be people to 'join' something for a 'mutual relationship' as you describe, with both the organisation and the other members.  The difference is community I think?

 There are a number of businesses which attempt or have already tried to create online communities with customers, forums etc.  When the motivation for creating these communities is to sell more to the existing customers then I think this can diminish some of the genuine membership communities... Or not? What do you think?

When people refer to the 'membership offering' it seems once again that the judgement is one sided i.e. what can the organisation do for me.... rather than what we can do together? 

Hi Sophia

I would love to see some more detailed research on the UK experience in member organisations. I think there may even be some new research already being generated through universities around 'social capital' and there is some already published strong enough to look at trends... mostly pointing to reductions in membership. Examples of dramatic falloffs in memberships include political party membership which was close to 3.5 million 25 years ago and is now less than 500,000. Church attendance has halved over the same period.

David Robinson of Community Links and We Are What We Do gave a particularly interesting lecture about social capital and engagement and he described an 'engagement funnel', where the really active and engaged members lie at the small end. But people have the potential to move up the funnel from 'occasionals' to 'serial activists'.

Also what you say about identity is very relevant. The Young Foundation's research shows that a generation ago, half of all electors 'identified very strongly' with a political party. Today that figure is one in six.

The reason why I feel the thinking around all these matters is so broad is because essentially this is an area which includes massive societal shifts around club, organisation and brand affiliation. But it is by no means all gloomy - there are many positive aspects to the trends, which points away from the insular view - membership is changing. Referring back to David Robinson's talk, volunteering is still strong but it is very different. People want to help, want to volunteer but on a much more relaxed, ad-hoc, low-commitment basis. People may not belong to political parties but they do take part in events, for example: Make Poverty History, when 30% of 16 -24 year olds wore the white band.

Then if you further add Clay Shirky's exciting insights on group creation. . . .

The key points for me are that people have a very wide choice of affiliations and membership, that there is an enormous surge in what can be joined, from the loose ties of facebook groups to memberships which require a membership fee such as the RSA.

Ultimately it is likely, in my opinion, that organisations with a lot of imagination, a warm welcome, trustworthy core values, opportunities to move up the engagement funnel and who offer members the opportunity to contribute (as well as participate and have fun) are likely to continue to do well.

It would be great to see some research showing that the trends were swinging back to positive social participation - in whatever form that took.

I am optimistic.

I am beginning to wonder if 'engagement' isn't a personality type and a certain mindset.  Some people seem prepared to engage to a ridiculous degree and seem to find almost everything fascinating (I include myself) and 'others' who are hardly interested in replying to an email, much less leave comments on other people's blogs (what could possibly be the point of that?)..or write blog posts (what could possibly be the point of that?).

Someone I saw speak recently, talked about the high degree of ADHD being diagnosed in the US at the moment - and raised the idea that kids just weren't allowed to 'lose interest' anymore.

 I agree so much with Steve - it is hard to lose interest in people and easy to lose interest in online brochures.  So it is only the sites which are alive with people that hold any real interest....