Increasing Your Membership

By Michael Opsteegh, TechniScribe Managing Editor and Member, Orange County Chapter

Recently, at a meeting of the Orange County STC (OCSTC) council, I delivered some surprisingly happy news. One of my tasks as second vice president of membership was to report any changes in membership, and since STC purged all of the members who did not renew by the end of March, I knew I would have grim news to bear. At one time, OCSTC boasted over 430 members, and just when we were reaching a somewhat more modest peak of 303, STC purged the nonrenewing members and we were left with 261 members on our roster.

I was prepared for this because I knew our numbers were artificially inflated by nonreturning members. But, much to my surprise, I found that although our membership had dipped to 261, our chapter had actually grown by 10 percent when compared to the numbers reported at the same time last year. To add to my surprise, while our chapter has grown by 10 percent, Society membership at the international level grew by only 0.3 percent between April 2006 and April 2007.

There are probably many factors that are contributing to our success in the face of membership stagnation at the international level. For example, our local economy has done very well over the last year (notwithstanding a plethora of bankrupt subprime lending companies). But I would like to think that the success of the chapter is due in large part to the tireless efforts of the OCSTC council and those members who volunteer their time. Here are some of the steps we have taken to increase awareness and boost our membership, and I recommend that your chapter consider adopting similar measures:

• Target students
• Create a brand
• Don’t give away the store
• Survey your members

Target Students

Students bring energy and fresh ideas to the table. Since students want to become recognized in the professional world, they can prove to be your most eager and dedicated volunteers when no seasoned member is motivated to help the chapter. So targeting students or other entry-level technical communicators must be an integral part of any plan to boost membership.

As the membership officer for OCSTC, I visited a local state university each semester. During my visits, I spoke to technical writing students about becoming professional writers, and about how STC had benefited me and how they could also benefit from joining STC. I gave the students an overview of what the OCSTC had to offer in the form of employment services, programs, and publications.

The university visits paid off. A number of students attended the next chapter meeting that fit within their busy class schedules. One student met a prospective employer at her first meeting, arranged an interview, and landed a job. She then told her classmates about her success, and a few of her classmates joined STC.

This upcoming semester, I will again visit the university with our new membership officer to answer questions about becoming a technical communicator and to promote STC. We will also be sending our printed newsletter to English departments of universities and colleges, as well as career centers, in order to promote even greater awareness of our profession and our chapter among faculty and career advisors.

Create a Brand

To increase your visibility among existing and potential members, your chapter should brand itself—just like a company would. By branding, I mean you should create standards for chapter communications, including letters, e-mails, your Web site, and newsletter; adopt official chapter colors, typefaces, and graphics; and create a chapter logo if you don’t already have one. By branding your community, you boost your chapter’s visual recognition among both members and nonmembers in your region.

This last year, the OCSTC council decided that the chapter needed a new logo to appear on the Web site, letterhead, envelopes, receipts, invoices, and the chapter newsletter. In order to involve everyone, members were encouraged to submit entries to a chapter logo contest or volunteer to judge the logos submitted. To sweeten the deal and to encourage participation, the winner of the logo contest was awarded a Visa gift card.

With its new logo selected, OCSTC can now begin branding itself and create more uniform communications. This, in turn, makes the chapter look like a stronger, more cohesive, and authoritative group—attractive to both employers seeking to fill open positions and prospective members looking for value in an STC membership.

Don’t Give Away the Store

All too often, chapters give away their resources in a bid to attract new members. Chapters may leave online resources open to the public, or charge nonmembers the same rates to attend meetings as members. The idea is that the public will visit the Web site or attend the meeting, and want to join, right? Wrong. If chapters give away the store, there is no incentive for folks to join. Furthermore, the chapter’s loyal members will tire of their dues subsidizing benefits given to nonmembers.

Within the last two years, OCSTC has taken a couple of steps to make membership a much more attractive alternative to nonmembership. First, the council voted to widen the difference in rates paid at meetings between members and nonmembers. The meeting rates increased substantially for nonmembers, when compared to the modest increase in meeting rates for members that year.

Second, the council moved to lock the employment pages on the chapter Web site so that viewing open positions is restricted only to members for the first two weeks the position is posted. Position titles and locations are listed on the Web site, but to view the details the user must log in. The chapter Web site checks the user’s credentials against STC’s user database to validate the user’s member status. After two weeks, the open positions become viewable to the general public as a community service to both the general public and our local employers. Our members see the value in paying lower rates at our monthly meetings and enjoy having the first crack at jobs posted on the Web site, which makes them more likely to renew their memberships next year.

Survey Your Members

In order for chapters to remain relevant to their members—and to attract new members—chapters must compete with a wide variety of media and hectic lifestyles for the attention of technical communicators. In order to engage their interest, chapters must give members something they value.

OCSTC is currently beginning its next phase to help boost membership, as well as increase chapter meeting attendance. The council and a few volunteers are calling members personally to find out what they value about their OCSTC membership, and what would make the monthly chapter meeting more attractive to them than the next episode of Lost, House, or The Closer. Our intention is not just to gather information about how we can provide greater value to our members. We hope the individual attention we give to each member we call inspires that member to attend a meeting, or to renew his or her membership in January.

You can survey your members on many topics, gathering opinions on meetings, events, Web sites, educational programs, newsletters, and other chapter services. You should also consider calling members who chose not to renew to either remind them to renew, or to find out how STC or the chapter failed to provide the value essential to them. You will find that calling members rather than posting an online survey will not only generate more accurate data, but members will appreciate the individual attention and the fact that you want their opinions.

Remember this above all: in order for chapters to stay relevant to their members, they must provide intrinsic value to their members and show themselves as professional and authoritative leaders in the field of technical communication.

Michael Opsteegh is a technical writer for a software company in Irvine, California, where he assists in developing software documentation and Web pages. He currently serves Orange County STC as the managing editor of the chapter newsletter, TechniScribe, and he has also served as second vice president of membership and treasurer. If you have any questions or comments about this article, you can contact Michael at octechwriter@yahoo.com.

Revitalize Your Membership: A Guide to Hosting a Membership Drive

By Bob Young, Immediate Past President, Northeast Ohio Chapter

Editor’s note: The Northeast Ohio Chapter STC won a 2006 Community Achievement Award of Excellence for “[its] efforts in recognizing, retaining, and recruiting members.”
Undertaking a membership drive can appear to be an intimidating project for both the novice and seasoned chapter leader. There’s the amount of time needed for planning, making arrangements, and seeking volunteers to complete the project. And there’s the chilling unknown of what happens if the results fall below expectations.

Well, if you glean anything from this article, it’s the simple message that a membership drive is not only doable, but an enjoyable process that breeds many positives. Today, thanks to last year’s concerted membership drive, the Northeast Ohio Chapter STC (NEO STC) has bolstered its roster numbers. More importantly, morale has increased thanks to teamwork and a refreshed belief that anything is possible. It’s amazing what a little innovation, a few slices of pizza, and a side order of optimism can do in reaching out to fellow professionals.

Brief background: NEO STC had not had a coordinated membership drive in the last several years. We had routinely invited friends of members to meetings, but there was no sustained recruiting drive. With few guidelines to follow, I decided, as incoming president for the 2005–2006 year, to implement a three-pronged initiative: an organized recruiting drive using phones and e-mails, a beefed-up public relations effort, and last—but by no means least—a recognition program to increase community involvement and retain existing members.

Each of these three objectives is discussed separately to show how they intertwined to help us exceed expectations with an 18 percent membership gain.

Making the Connection

“Over the past couple of years our chapter had done a good job of retaining members, but we were not bringing in new people. You would see the same people at the regular meetings and board meetings,” said Beth Williams, who spearheaded the recruiting drive as membership chairperson. “STC has great people but priorities change as careers develop. We thought about what we could do as a chapter to meet our members’ needs.”

That something, Beth explained, centered on reconnecting with the membership base—with a personal touch. It would involve more than phone calls. This would be a year-round commitment to showcase the educational and networking benefits of STC membership. As examples, NEO STC conducted a one-day FrameMaker seminar, paid the cost of STC webinars so members could attend free, and held a family day meeting at the Great Lakes Science Center on a Saturday in February so members could bring their spouses, children, and friends.

“Our message was: If your needs have changed as a professional, then STC can still help you grow,” said Beth.

Beth teamed with Jill McCauslin to orchestrate a two-day telephone drive to start the process. Both are veteran STC members, past NEO STC presidents, and recipients of the distinguished chapter service award.

The dynamic duo focused on having members call former and non-renewed members to update them on chapter happenings and show we were interested in their involvement.

The first task was to compile different membership lists that were used throughout the past few years into one master file. Beth requested a new membership list from the Society office as well as a non-renewal list that included members from the past three years. She also had a chapter list that had been expanded by the programs committee over the years with the names of guests at meetings. Beth compared the names on all the lists to remove duplicates and those who were on the non-renewal list but rejoined at a later date. Then, she went to the STC Web site and reviewed addresses to check if any of the non-renewals had actually just transferred to another chapter. Beth estimates it took five hours to sift through 200 names before the final compilation of two lists: one of current members and the other of former members no longer affiliated with STC.

While the master list was being compiled, Jill arranged for us to use the facilities at RADCom, Inc., in Hudson, Ohio, to make calls. This offer was a blessing because RADCom’s telephone service is toll-free from Akron/Canton to Cleveland. Our anticipated cost was reduced by not having to pay long-distance fees to contact former members. NEO STC’s geographical base stretches some 133 miles from southern Canton, Ohio to the outskirts of Erie, Pennsylvania.

Jill and I chose two days in August for the phone campaign; calls were made in the afternoon of one day and the evening of the next. This helped us reach a greater number of former members because we had business phone numbers mixed in with home phone numbers. E-mails were then sent to the membership with the dates of the phone campaign and a request for volunteers. We were pleased with the turnout on both dates despite work commitments and summer vacations. Maybe it was just good pizza and camaraderie. But there was no secret about the organized effort.

Beth had divided the calling lists into groups of ten people to make it easier for volunteers to make calls. The calling sheets included a section for notes to jot down changes in e-mail addresses and/or comments about why members chose not to return. The comments were helpful to the programs committee in learning what was working and what needed improvement. Most were favorable, such as: “Thanks for taking the time to call me,” and “Glad to hear NEO STC is doing well.” A few minutes on the phone can build a lasting connection (excuse the pun). To assist with any follow-up questions, our webmaster, Brian Baddour, placed
a link to a page about the membership campaign on the chapter Web site. This was placed near the calendar link so former members could easily review upcoming events and speakers.

Two weeks after the phone drive, members of our executive board were each asked to personally call or e-mail ten of our current members to thank them for choosing NEO STC as their geographical community and to direct them to the Web site for upcoming events and information.

Revitalizing the PR Spirit

At the same time that the membership campaign was being conducted, the public relations committee was formulating goals for the year. Besides revitalizing marketing initiatives, the PR team assisted the membership campaign. PR Committee Chairman Mario Morelos wrote scripts to assist callers in spreading the message. The scripts contained key points that we wanted to emphasize and helped break the ice at the start of the phone calls.

The programs committee, meanwhile, realized that we needed an impact speaker at our first meeting of the year in September. This would give us an opportunity to stir interest in the coming year among both past and current members. We were fortunate to arrange for Neil Perlin, a veteran STC presenter and technical expert, to kick off the first meeting with a presentation on emerging technologies, including blogs and wikis.

By reaching out to both current and former members, we had fifty-two people attend our September 8 meeting featuring Neil Perlin. This was the largest turnout for a regular meeting in many years for NEO STC.

Retention of members is equally important. To this end, the PR team pledged to improve communication with the membership and increase NEO STC’s visibility in the northeast Ohio community. These objectives were met with a redesigned chapter logo, press releases sent to area media, e-mails to members, and a new meeting program that introduced the evening’s presenter and spotlighted sustaining organizations and sponsors. In addition, a colorful, professionally printed brochure was written by our members to highlight NEO STC’s penchant for developing career skills.

You may still be asking yourself what PR has to do with recruiting members. Everything! We have to get into the mindset of “selling” the many benefits STC offers and the work we do. By reacquainting ourselves with other professional groups, we will be able to offer more diverse meeting topics to interest more potential members.

We also have increased our sponsorship coffers, allowing us to provide more services to our existing members such as webinars, Software Saturdays, and volunteer recognition. This brings us to the next initiative on our list.

Recognizing Senior Members

NEO STC initiated a recognition program that was modeled after the successful program of the Orlando Chapter STC. The key is to take time to give thanks to your volunteers and pay tribute to senior members of your chapter. Volunteers who feel appreciated are more willing to get involved in activities and, in turn, the resulting teamwork creates stronger bonds within the geographical community.

The Society office sends a letter and certificate to STC members who have reached five years of membership. NEO STC wanted to “add value” to senior member status, so we decided that our recognition program would include giving our five-year members a “senior” pin along with an NEO STC certificate during a meeting. We purchased a total of fifteen pins at $10 apiece. Although it would be helpful for the Society office to provide chapters with a better price for the pins, it’s still a small price for a boost in morale. Plus, the pins are excellent recognition for the chapter as well.

NEO STC member Bob Clark wore his senior pin to work the day after being recognized at the meeting, and the little red pin did its magic.

“I asked, what is that? What affiliation?” said Neil Stenger in reference to the STC senior pin. “I had heard he [Clark] was a member. I was curious.” Stenger, an intranet manager at Ohio Savings Bank in Cleveland, added: “It’s great brand recognition. It looks professional.”

Sharon Resar joined NEO STC thanks in part to Clark’s pin. “I had looked at [STC membership] before and thought about it. Bob convinced me to join.”

Resar, who is a senior analyst in methods and procedures and an employee com-
munication coordinator at Ohio Savings, says her membership “is a good way to stay informed and educated” about the technical communication industry.

New member packets that focus on the benefits of membership are also an important part of a successful membership drive. The welcome letter does not have to be fancy. The message must communicate that STC membership provides excellent networking and career growth opportunities.

“Our recent hires have been technical writers. We’ve become more technical-oriented. We needed people with certain skills,” said Evelyn Kozik on her reasons for joining STC and seeking NEO STC writers and editors. Kozik is the manager of the knowledge management group at Ohio Savings.

Rewarding Effort

As you can see, NEO STC’s membership campaign involved more than telephone calls and e-mails. But, your community could still use a few of these ideas to start recruiting. We started the STC year with 144 members and, by January, we led Region 4 in percentage of increased membership at a 17.5 percent clip. Overall, twenty-six new members joined in a nine-month period—an 18 percent increase. It was a team effort. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how members contribute time and energy to renew enthusiasm in your organization. This certainly happened in our group, which I believe is more important than what the numbers show.

We saw a dip in non-renewals, but efforts are already under way to contact those members to tell them we want their participation. It’s a continuous opportunity to try new recruiting tactics.

“This isn’t rocket science,” said Beth. “We simply reconnected with our members. That’s always a good thing to do.”

Bob Young is a senior documentation specialist for MAXIMUS, Inc., which develops and maintains judicial software applications in North Canton, Ohio. A lone writer, Bob is responsible for all content, editing, and the design of user manuals in PDF and online formats for case, jury, and jail management applications. Bob is a senior member of the Northeast Ohio STC community and served as president for the 2005-2006 year. An avid boater and Cleveland Indians baseball fan, Bob earned a journalism degree from Ohio University. He was a sportswriter for two daily newspapers prior to joining the MAXIMUS team.