The Membership Project

The background to the project is here, together our inspiration for an open, collaborative process to develop guidance, products and services for groups and membership organisations in a more networked world. Relevant blog items are listed at the foot of the page.

Getting started: February - March 2008

Because this is an open, collaborative process we've deliberate gone for a messy start, exploring what's happening in the field and who might be interested. That's reflected in the sequence of blog posts you can see in the project timeline. From these early explorations we've started to develop specific work packages: a possible Guide, products and services. further research, a toolkit and other links to resources.

Next steps March - July 2008

During this phase we aim to:

• Promote the project more widely among different interests: nonprofit organisations, social media enthusiasts, consultants and others involved in organisational development
• Bring together some of the key people interested to form a core group for he project network.
• Develop some first demonstration products and services, so that we can ...
• Run a workshop at the NCVO membership conference on April 22, and also ...
• Start to work directly with organisations, where possible on a paying basis. We only have very modest start-up funding so far, so we'll need to ...
• Put together funding proposals to potential investors. As part of that, we'll ...
• Develop more detailed proposals, including those for a Guide, research and toolkit.

We are looking out for a major 4Good Festival due to be held in London in early July, which we hope will provide a powerful incentive to all of us to have something to show by then. Look out for more about the Festival here.

What happens after July depends on how successful we have been in marketing early products and services, and in securing additional funding.