First report from the CAPS Conference

["Robert Pries " <101p@rewrite.aisboard.org>]

Report #1 from 2014 CAPS Conference;

The bottom line is all the plant societies are in trouble and struggling to
regain there once prominent status. The question is now are plant societies
(or any organization) relevant to their present membership and to potential
members. I was amazed that at the conference AIS has lots of bragging points.
AIS and another group were the only associations that were not in freefall of
membership decline. One society that used to have 20,000 members now has
8,000. Our losses from our peak were not more than half and we might claim to
be holding steady, but that is only the last two years. I believe the great
deal of change we have undergone has helped.

The question for us may be can we grow again? Like most association members
many of ours do not even know about initiatives we have started. I think most
members had no idea we had a membership contest this year. It is doubtful how
many articles in the Bulletin are really read, as opposed to seeing the
pictures. While this is normal it means it is very hard for the national to do
anything without the concerted help of regions and affiliates. News & Notes,
by Nonprofit standards, is an incredible success with generally over 60%
looking at it. Most Nonprofits get a readership of 16%. But relatively few
people read any one article. So anything and everything we try to do works
very slowly.

But back to the conference: The Garden Writers Association gave a
presentation. They just spent $10,000 on a consultant B to help them turn
their organization around. They explained some of what they did but mostly
recommended three books on the subject which I purchased when I got home and
have read 2. I would recommend these for reading by our officers and
directors. The most interesting was: bThe End Of Membership As We Know it
(building the fortune flipping, Must-Have Association of the Next Century) by
Sarah Sladek. The other two are: bThe Road to Relevanceb and the Race to
Relevanceb. To summarize they say we must offer benefits to our members that
are worth the price of membership. That these benefits must be valued by the
members (Not what we think they should want) and that we provide benefits that
would be seen by potential members as desirable. What the present membership
values and what new or potential members value may not be the same and
sometimes may even be in conflict.

They point out that many boards do not contain any members who are young
enough to carry on when the old members leave. They point to the rapid change
in technology, and note that organizations must stay in pace with the larger
world. Not all organizations are dying but many are being replaced by other
groups or elements of our society. For example the AMA which is a shadow of
its former self contains almost only old doctors, younger ones are joining
specialty organizations which are growing. I read that just before talking to
my urologist and even he, who is probably in his late fifties he said he quite
the AMA and only belongs to his specialty group because he felt the AMA did
nothing for him. What do we do for our members that they want? What attracts
potential members? I think we need to constantly be asking these questions.

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