Hi Pooja!
What is Retention?
Retention is the process of ensuring that your members or volunteers remain active with your organization. Retention is not a particularly formal process. Instead, it focuses on maintaining a welcoming environment, member morale, and organizational progress.
Why is Retention Important?
Retention is important for a variety of reasons, which include having:
- A happy organizational community
- A pool of members who you can count on to help when needed
- A pool of members who could potentially be future leaders
- A strong indicator of organizational success
Retention Basics
Levels of Activeness
It is important to acknowledge that members can be active with your organization at a variety of levels. Some members like to help with planning programs, some like to attend programs, and some just like to be on the listserv. Regardless of their level of activeness, though, retention is critical.
Keys to Strong Retention
- Involvement: Get your members involved with program planning and implementation. Invite them to help with as many aspects of your organization and programming as possible. Remember, students generally dislike just sitting at meetings and hearing others speak. Offer them things that are active.
- Ownership: Let your members participate in decision-making, or at least give them opportunities to openly voice their needs, interests, and opinions. In addition to decision-making, ownership also includes getting them involved (see above).
- Benefits: Offer benefits or incentives for your members to be active in your organization. Benefits can be tangible, intangible, or both. Important benefits include a sense of belonging and community.
Retention Strategies
Conversations
Having simple conversations with members can go a long way in terms of creating a welcoming environment and ensuring that members feel comfortable in the organization. Conversations don't necessarily have to deal with organizational business or issues. Small talk and chit-chat are just as good.
Updates
People can generally lose interest in an organization if they don't know what the organization is doing or what it has planned. Constant updates, whether through emails, newsletters, websites, or meetings, are key to maintaining a base level of interest.
General Meetings
General meetings are popular ways to disseminate information and update members. However, the drawback with general meetings is that it is a passive activity. In other words, members merely sit and listen to the leadership speak. Although such meetings are good to have once or twice at the beginning of the year, meetings during the rest of the year should focus on getting members involved in some activity.