Memberships and Membership Committees

17 Mar Memberships and Membership Committees

17 March 2026

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I’m thinking green today. May the luck of the Irish be with you!

I have a bias – those of you who know me will find that easy to believe. My bias is that conservation organizations should use membership language – dues, renewal, term, expiration, and so on.

NOT necessarily in the sense of governance – members voting on bylaws changes, annual budgets, and slates of Board members.

NOT necessarily in the sense of pay-to-play admissions, like museums and nature centers.

And NOT in the sense of ascending collections of giveaways and discounts.

But rather in the sense of belonging. In the sense of being a part of the conservation mission. Of seeing oneself playing an important role in an important activity. And in the sense of that commitment having a finite term with an assumption of renewal at the end.

Many organizations have moved away from using membership language for reasons I don’t fully understand and won’t argue here. It’s only a consequential mistake if donors no longer feel connected and therefore have less invested in renewing. In other words, if it ends up costing the organization donors and money.

The benchmark I use as a standard is 70% renewal. Using a strict 365-day year, what percentage of donors from one year give again the following year? The bias comes from seeing too many organizations with renewal rates in the 50s and 60s increase their renewal rate to more than 70% simply by adopting membership language.

But is it necessary?

No. I’ve seen 70% renewal from systems of appeal letters instead. Say you wrote and mailed four appeal letters each year – approximately one every quarter. And say you mailed each appeal letter ONLY to those who did not respond in any way to the previous letter. Those who respond to every letter receive just two letters each year. Those who respond to only one letter would end up receiving three.

The downside of course is the labor involved in creating the material. A renewal “system” involving several letters and emails and at least one call can be replicated every year with very little effort. The letters will need refreshing every several years or so, but changing out a few paragraphs with current information is not a heavy lift.

Appeals letters are much longer letters, and each one needs to be written from scratch to achieve the same response result.

In both cases, renewal letters and appeal letters, the writing exercise is technical. Most people won’t actually read the letters, so the exercise is more about behavioral science than about correspondence. We know what works and what doesn’t.

So with all of THAT as context, I am equally biased AGAINST Board membership committees. Writing technical letters and getting the mail out is a STAFF function (as opposed to a Board function), and it’s a “staff” function even if the staff involved are not actually paid. Getting more than one or two people involved in the letter creation risks mediocrity by committee and real diminished results in terms of fewer donors responding and less money raised.

Staff-led working groups (again, even if the “staff” are unpaid volunteers) should be organized instead to support the renewal process by making phone calls (I’m dropping your renewal in the mail today; please give it your consideration) or by writing “lift” notes on the letter and on the outside envelope or even by assembling the mailing for small organizations with no staff.

That’s not a Board (oversight) committee. It’s a volunteer working group that may or may not have Board members on it.

Regardless, leaning into the membership language is highly recommended.

Organizational growth

Better renewal rate

More money raised

No minutes required.

How lucky could you get?

Cheers, and Have a great week.

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

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