Tips

Getting contact info: Use civiCRM to produce a report of your current membership. This report will have contact info, and will indicate if the membership is going to lapse within the period of the contest. If you haven’t used civiCRM before, or have but can’t get it to do what you want, contact your organizer.

Have a party: Most people don’t like calling other people they don’t know. But you’ll be surprised, first of all, how many people you are acquainted with on your EDA’s membership list, and so not all your calls will be “cold.” More importantly, the membership drive is a chance for your EDA executive and other volunteers to get together with your phones and some drinks and snacks and hit your targets.

Get out to festivals and events in your community: Booking a table at a local festival is not very expensive, and the food, the music, and the people make it more than worthwhile. Take a membership booklet, and concentrate on talking to interested people about the value of membership. Use this pamphlet, originally prepared by Peter Tretter from the Barrie Greens, to give to people who show interest, but aren’t members. And then see if they want to sign up!

Create incentives in your team: Set reachable targets for your team, and celebrate if you meet them – or come close. Some teams enjoy competing with each other, in which case you may want to set “prizes” (I’ll walk your dog; you’ll cook me dinner; we’ll take you out for breakfast…) for individuals. In many cases, however, securing memberships is a group effort, so some kind of reward for everyone (new t-shirts for the campaign, discount for the team members?) usually works best.