Owners creating membership sites focusing on member retention will face multiple questions, including a big one: why is increasing membership important?
Is there a real need for businesses, associations, and clubs to continuously look at increasing community memberships? The simple answer is – yes, it is important, but why?
Why Is Increasing Membership Important?
Increasing membership is important because it boils down to several benefits, such as diversifying perspectives, accessing more resources, widening influence and reach, strengthening the community and networking ability, and long-term stability.
All these elements are important when increasing membership in your community because of the following:
Diversifying Perspectives
In a larger and more diverse community, general members will benefit from a wider range of perspectives, experiences, and ideas.
This creates an environment that pushes innovation, creativity, and problem-solving abilities.
More Resources
It’s simple math: more members means an increase in financial resources. Also, more memberships mean more individuals giving donations and contributing to fundraising efforts.
As you can imagine, this enables organizations to expand their programs, services, and initiatives and invest in infrastructure, technology, and talent.
Wider Reach And Influence
Growing your membership base will allow you and your organization’s messaging to reach further. Expanding this reach means your members could attribute and even influence policies, regulations, and public opinion.
This broader reach enhances the organization’s capacity to effectively effect positive change and address societal challenges.
Strengthened Community and Networking
When growing a community, you also, as a byproduct, cultivate a sense of belonging and community among members, which fosters connections and collaborations.
Creating these support networks and relationships benefits individual members and helps with the organization’s overall effectiveness.
Long-Term Sustainability
Building and maintaining a community requires new members to come into the community when others decide to leave.
Increasing memberships guarantees the longevity of the organization’s mission and impact over time.
Now that we’ve addressed “Why is increasing membership important?” you might have read that member engagement is also important – but why?
Why Is Membership Engagement Important?
When creating any community, membership engagement is important as it develops a sense of belonging to the group, strengthens bonds, and helps to encourage active participation.
Engaged members are also more likely to contribute ideas, resources, and efforts toward the organization’s goals, leading to innovation and growth.
Additionally, engaged members contribute positively to retention rates as they become true ambassadors for your community, enticing new members to join via word of mouth.
Overall, engaged members have a better experience with the community and will help whenever they can.
Now that we understand the importance of an engaged member, how do you increase membership involvement?
How Do You Increase Membership Involvement?
To increase membership involvement, you need to adopt a multi-faceted strategy that touches upon frequent and effective communication with members, providing value, allowing constructive feedback, offering training and development, creating a sense of community with members, and rewarding members who participate.
So, to increase membership involvement, you need to:
- Communicate
- Provide real value
- Develop opportunities
- Allow feedback
- Offer members training and development
- Create a sense of community
- And reward participating members.
When looking to answer “Why is increasing membership important?” for yourself, it is vital to focus on meeting your members’ needs.
Read next: Why Is Membership Recruitment Important?
