Hi Marilynn and others...

I've been thinking about value membership a lot over the past several years and have been interviewing professionals who are taking a new approach to membership. Here are a few articles and interviews that might interest you:

Rethinking membership: http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/rethinking-membership-what-does-it-mean.html

Interview with Will Cary and Shelley Bernstein of the Brooklyn Museum of Art re their "1st Fans" membership: http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2009/02/1stfans-audience-specific-membership.html

Interview with Kirsten Denner of the Whitney about their "Curate Your Own" membership: http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2010/09/curate-your-own-membership-interview.html

Another question about value memberships: http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2010/02/could-you-split-your-membership.html

I'd also recommend John Falk and Beverly Sheppard's book Thriving in the Knowledge Age, which talks a great deal about membership. I also focused on membership and building relationships with visitors over time in chapter 2 of The Participatory Museum, which you can access here: www.participatorymuseum.org/chapter2

I hope this helps!

Nina

Nina Simon

Museum 2.0 - www.museumtwo.com

On Apr 6, 2011, at 11:40 AM, Marilynn Havelka wrote:

A while back I wrote an email asking if other organizations were rethinking their membership program - I got one response so I am putting the plea out once again. We have a program that is stagnant - we can't seem to get over the hump to encourage more members. While thinking about membership we are revisiting some issues: why do we have membership, why are people members, are the benefits relevant, how can we get more, what else can we offer to attract new members.
(With our e-newsletter and web site with newsletters posted we cannot boast that members get 4 newsletters per year.)
One action that we are taking is to call each member and chat with them about their membership, what it means to them, what other benefits would they like to see and what other programs etc would they like to see at our site. To date I have called 3 to date- each call takes 1/2 hour and all 3 said they would get back to me (however I did get comments and I am engaging with our audience which I think is extremely worth the time and effort.
Do you have similar issues that you can share, advise, resources...would love to hear from you.
thanks
Marilynn

--
Marilynn Havelka
Chief Administrative Officer
Ruthven Park National Historic Site
243 Haldimand Hwy. #54, Box 610
Cayuga, Ontario Canada N0A 1E0

tel- (905) 772-0560
fax- (905) 772-0561
cell- (905) 977-1845

www.ruthvenpark.ca

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