The Path To Increased Membership ?
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Topic created by rgbortz on Mon Jun 1, 2015 at 4:54 pmSo I met this young man on the path while setting courses the other day and I invited him to come to our event. He asked if this benefited kids. Ummmm. How do all these walks and runs across this country get thousands of participants ? That's right, the events are to benefit this group, that organization, to raise funds, to make the world a better place for those less fortunate in untold numbers of circumstances peolple find themselves in through no particular fault of their own.
Do we want 200 participants at $7 each or 500 participants at $3.50 (50% donated) each ?
You can play with the numbers all you want and throw in the discussion of the benefits of belonging to a club but think about what people are willing to do when they know they are benefitting someone less fortunate than themselves. -
Reply by kathyu on Mon Jun 1, 2015 at 6:41 pmI've been asked this too. Does the charity ask you to run a meet for them? Some people in the club run a lot of these events. I'll bet they have good input. Would runners just come once, or would they get interested in the sport?
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Reply by camperpat on Tue Jun 2, 2015 at 7:40 amOur local outdoors club s membership is half of what is was just a few years ago. We have tried various options such as come on any activity x2 then you are asked to join, free membership for leaders of activities, free pizza after meetings, catered picnics. None of that has increased the membership. Meet-up has so many free activities, people feel no obligation to join or even help. I don't have the answer. camperpat
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Reply by Nancy on Thu Jun 4, 2015 at 10:01 pmOne of the challenges our sport faces is that people don't know what we do. People know about walking or running; they don't know about orienteering. Could we attract 500 people to do something they don't know because we're helping to raise money for a cause they do know?What cause would we support? In might be a natural to raise funds for the park in which we're holding our event. And the people interested in supporting that park might be inclined to learn about another way to enjoy their favorite park.I would want to make sure we understand our cost structure for such an event. We have fixed costs to cover: map printing is close to $1 a piece with quick printing, up from a few cents with our previous mass printing process. Costs to the national chapter to cover insurance is more than a dollar per person. At some parks, the cost of using the facilicities is $1 to $2 per person. And then there are the costs of water and refreshments at finish. Maybe half of $12, the non-member rate, not half of $7, the member rate, could go to the beneficiary.All we need are the people to volunteer to run such an event...And deciding which of the many parks we use to support in this way.
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Reply by CarolKlu on Tue Jun 16, 2015 at 12:16 pmMaybe I'm a scrooge but I don't want this club to turn into a fundraiser. People dole out lots of cash to run 5Ks so they are willing to pay for outdoors things.
