Successful Membership Recruitment Ideas

Getting the Right Tools

• Membership Chair – Select outgoing individuals who converse easily with other people. Once the membership chair is in place, he or she should put together a basket of tools before deciding on a plan.
• Who to Contact – Contact your Regional Manager (RM) for a list of all member and nonmember banks in your area. Do so as early in the year as possible.
• Planning – The Membership Toolbox has applications, sample membership recruitment letters, tips sheets, and contact info for RMA staff. Download a copy from the RMA website as soon as you can, or call your Regional Manager to get a paper copy sent to you.
• Leads – Pass the member and nonmember bank lists around the table at the first board meeting of the year. Ask the board members to indicate who has contacts at any of the institutions.
• Involvement – make sure that the board knows that recruitment and retention of members is a team effort, and everyone should be involved (even if it’s recruiting Associates at their own bank).
• What to Avoid – never leave your membership recruitment and retention solely in the hands of your administrator. Membership should be a team effort and should involve face-to-face conversation, direct follow up, and networking/education experiences for the institutions you approach.

Set Up a Membership Committee

• Realize that some people have a talent for convincing others to join an association, while some people don’t. Recognize your stars and get them to help out in face-to-face opportunities.
• Consider adding some nonbankers who are actively involved in networking with bankers.
• Lawyers and CPA’s are terrific sources when it comes to local contacts.
• Set up the Membership Committee before the fiscal year begins (by the end of summer) and encourage the membership chair to attend the RMA Leaders Conference in June.
• Select a committee, but make sure the board realizes that membership recruitment is everyone’s responsibility.
• Make sure that all committee volunteers and board members are Associate or Professional members of RMA. If not, recommend they join personally (so that they are aware of the full benefits of membership and can more effectively recruit others to join).
• Try having two board members make a joint call on the prospective bank. If two people are responsible, you may have more luck. When it is just one board member, there are a lot more "I didn't have time" scenarios.
• Set deadlines on when who will call on whom. Put the assignments and deadlines in your board minutes, and have the membership chair person send out reminders. Have everyone report their progress at the next board meeting. Don’t be hard-nosed about it, but you will find that you will get a better response when you implement some accountability.

Set Goals and Use Incentives

• Each year prior to starting a membership campaign, get your membership chair to provide overview/refresher training to the board on RMA membership, including: types of membership, dues, and benefits.
• At your planning meeting, get your entire board involved in setting membership goals, and enlist your board’s support to meet those goals.
• Brainstorm at your first board planning meeting. Develop a list of prospective institutions and Associates to target for membership.
• If your chapter maintains a database or records of past attendees, use this as a base or starting point for developing a prospect list.
• Challenge board members to a membership recruiting contest and offer prizes, e.g. dinner for two at a nice restaurant, iPod, or movie passes to whoever recruits the most members. Each board member is expected to recruit at least two new Associate members per year.
• Establish a schedule of regular meetings for the Membership Committee, so its committee members can share results, exchange ideas, and track progress on a regular basis. Meetings can be as simple as an additional 10 minutes at the end of each monthly board meeting. Keep tabs on your progress!
• Make it a regular item on the agenda at all board meetings to report recruitment progress. This may result in new leads for prospective institutional and Associate members, and will also remind all board members of their membership development responsibilities.
• Try to coordinate/synchronize your chapter’s new member campaign with the national RMA membership campaigns. That way, you can capitalize on any extra benefit offered by RMA HQ, and maximize the incentives your chapter offers.

Consider These Recruitment Tips

• At the very least, your goal on any bank visit (especially at nonmember or regional banks) is to ask for someone at that institution to serve as an ambassador for the institution. That is, the chapter can send the upcoming schedule of events and activities and the ambassador would be responsible for the distribution throughout that organization. This is a great way to begin to get them involved.
• Institute a buddy system. Each board member should select two nonmember institutions (or professional firms) and serve as their buddy for the year. Board members should call these institutions, invite them to meetings, and highlight upcoming educational activities. Offer free attendance, if you think that is needed to get a prospect to attend an event.
• Offer two-tiered pricing, one price for members and a higher price for nonmembers to show the value of RMA membership.
• Associate membership in RMA costs $65, of which $20 goes back to the chapter. Consider pricing your event, so that the price for nonmembers is sufficiently higher than the price for members that it encourages attendees to become members right away so they can take advantage of the lower member price for that event. That way they can recoup the $65 membership charge after paying the lower member price for just one or two events.
• Order an RMA Product Box (free of charge) from HQ for each programming event. The Product Box includes applications, brochures, educational info, and a variety of information related to RMA’s initiatives and services.
• Invite your Regional Manager to join you or another board/committee member for onsite calls to prospective member institutions while he/she is visiting your chapter. RM’s are very knowledgeable about the latest products and services that RMA offers, while you know the benefits of RMA membership specific to local institutions.
• As Credit Risk Certification (CRC) continues to spread, more banks value the programming and educational opportunities provided by your chapter. Use certification as a door opener to begin your conversation about membership in RMA.
• Ask each member to accept responsibility for recruiting within his or her own company. Adding Associates within board member banks is a good start to a successful campaign.
• Keep nonmembers on your mailing list. Send them newsletters and meeting notices. Invite them to join RMA when they attend any event.
• Immediately following every event, send letters and applications to all nonmembers who attended and invite them to join RMA. These people are your BEST prospects for membership. (This means you need to build into the event registration a way to capture every registrant’s mailing and e-mail address, and other contact information.
• Consider a members-only event that features a high profile speaker. Allow nonmembers to become members at the door or when they register for the event.
• Suggest that the chapter use local “bankers banks” to help recruit new members. Bankers at those institutions know all the players and can be a good source of hot prospects. 
• Correspondent banking departments at larger banks are another good source of high-quality referrals.
• Fostering relationships with local colleges and universities can help provide new Student memberships with those in financial services majors. Contact a dean or professor in the business or MBA schools to seek their involvement. Young Professionals programs are often a great source of interest for students and faculty.
• Fostering relationships with local graduate schools of banking (Stonier, LSU, etc.) can result in good publicity for both your chapter and the school. And it could also generate new members.

Follow Up and Recognize

• Track new members and make sure you add them to the chapter's mailing lists. Share the results with each person on the Membership Committee and recognize individual efforts.
• Introduce new members at each general membership meeting. Encourage the committee member who recruited the new member to make the introduction.
• Make special mention of new members in your local newsletter or on your chapter website.
• Recognize the recruitment successes of each board member at an awards lunch.

Most Important of All ... Make Sure You Are Involved!

For more information and for additional resources, please contact the Regional Manager for your area.