for more information, visit wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey...
TRANSCRIPT
For more information, visit wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey
Survey Highlights
For more information, visit wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey
Small Membership Insight Survey – What’s it all about?
Since Wild Apricot’s goal is to help small associations and non-profits build websites, connect with supporters, grow and manage their membership, we wanted to gain more insight into their world.
So we conducted an online own survey to find out: who manages these organizations day-to-day, volunteers or staff; what are their funding sources and much more. We wanted to know: does size matter and if so, how?
In addition to gaining insight about smaller, volunteer-led organizations, we hope our survey findings offer benchmarking information for the staff and volunteers of small organizations.
For more information, visit wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey
Who participated in our survey?Here is a snapshot of our 559 survey respondents:
•63.7% of the respondents are (unpaid) volunteers.
•More than 40% are in leadership roles at their organization (e.g., President/Board Chair - 22.7%); Executive Director -20.4%)
•Just over 50% of survey respondents represented associations
•82.2% of our survey respondents were based in the United States (82.2%), with the remainder mainly from Canada, the UK and Australia.
For more information, visit wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey
What does a typical “small” membership organization look like?
Based on our survey data, a typical small membership organization…
•Has fewer than 500 members
•Is volunteer-led
•Is staffed by 1 full or part-time staffer
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Portrait of a Small Membership Organization
Our survey data suggest a typical small membership organization…
•Has non-profit status
•Is a stand-alone organization
•Has a local or regional membership reach
•Has an annual budget less than $50,000
For more information, visit wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey
Budgets and Funding sources
Here’s a snapshot of the financial status of small membership organizations:
•Budgets: 61.5% have an annual budget less than $50,000
•Membership growth patterns: More than 75% reported membership levels had stayed the same or increased 10-50% in the last year
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Budgets and Funding sources
• Income sources: 63.5% reported membership fees as a “critical source” of income; followed by events (34%), fundraising (21.8%), and sponsorship / advertising (17.5%)
• Membership fees: 54.6% had basic membership fees of $21.00-$99.00
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Top prioritiesThe three top priorities for small organizations were:
•increasing membership (27.7%)
•increasing member engagement (22.1%)
•demonstrating member value (15%)
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Reasons Members Join and Programs & Services Offered
The top three reasons members join were:•Networking (77.1%)•Member education/professional development (71.3%)•Learning best practices in their profession/field (43.7%)
The top three program and service categories:•Networking events (66.8%)•Member education/professional development (64.9%)•Information/publications/books (44.1%)
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Who manages small membership organizations day-to-day?
• Volunteer only - 53.4%• Staff only - 23.3%• Combination of volunteer & staff
- 23.3%
Staffing levels: • 30% had 1 part-time staff• 23.4% had 1 full-time staff• 11% had 2 part-time staff• 11% had 3-5 part-time staff
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Small membership communications
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Small membership communications• Top 3 tools for communicating with
existing members: – Email - 97.3%– websites - 63.2%– newsletters/magazines - 58.7%
• Top 3 channels for renewal efforts: – email - 85.4%– websites -70%– direct mail - 38.3%
• Recruitment channels: – websites - 92%– word-of-mouth - 89.4%– email - 65%
• Social media use: – 54.5% use social media for member
communications– Recruitment:
• 50% use Facebook for recruitment • 25% use Twitter • 19.2% use LinkedIn
For more information, visit wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey
Want additional insight into small
membership organizations?
You can download the full Small Membership Insights Survey Report here:http://www.wildapricot.com/membership-insight-survey/