10 Member Drive Ideas

If you’re looking to run a membership drive and need some help, you’ve come to the right place.

I’ve rounded up 10 real-life examples of organizations (both small and large) that held very successful membership drives, gaining anywhere from 5 to 200 new members.

To put on a successful membership drive you can’t over-complicate things. Your membership drive ideas should be fairly simple to plan and execute.

In this blog we’ll share how to set your membership goals, build a successful strategy and give you some member drive ideas to get you started. By following these steps and examples, you’ll meet great success. Let’s get into it!

Building Goals for Your Member Drive

Your member drive should have clear but achievable goals.

And this is where many organizations make mistakes. They set goals like, “increase memberships,” or “market our organization more.”

The problem with these types of goals is there’s no way to measure real success. If your organization gains one new member, did you reach your goal? How about 100 new members?

In order to have goals that your organization will actually achieve, use the SMART framework.

SMART goals stand for:

• Specific: What exactly do we want to accomplish?
• Measurable: How will we know when it’s accomplished?
• Achievable: Is the goal realistically achievable?
• Relevant: Does it align with our mission statement?
• Time-bound: When will we achieve this goal?

So how does this look when goal setting for your membership drive?

Say for example, you have an organization of 500 members. A SMART goal might be: Gain 50 new members over one month — that’s a 10% increase over their base membership.

This goal is SMART because it’s Specific (50 members), Measurable (50), Achievable (10% increase), Relevant (members for a membership organization), and Time Bound (one month).

Once you have your SMART goal created, it’s time to build a strategy for your membership drive.

How to Create a Successful Membership Drive Strategy

The organizations who run the most successful membership drives all have one thing in common: they make the most use of their available resources.

That’s all a good strategy does.

To start, make a list of all your currently available resources and how you can use them to your for your next membership campaign. Consider:

• What people can help you out? Your board, members, volunteers, donors, business partners, supporters, industry contacts etc.
• What locations do you have available at your disposal? Local library, schools, conference center, your office, a park, community center, local restaurants/bars etc.
• What creative skills do your board and volunteers possess? Photoshop, video editing, graphic design, painting, event planning, speaking, cooking, singing, other special talents etc.

When brainstorming membership drive ideas, it’s also helpful to look through your organization’s history to see what’s worked before. Try reaching out to similar organizations or chapters in different cities to see what’s worked well for them too.

If nothing in your list of resources is popping out to you, here’s a list of successful membership strategies I’ve seen work well in gaining a lot of new members:

10 Proven Ideas for a Successful Membership Drive

1) Free Luncheon

A free luncheon for your members is a great way to build referral opportunities. Your member’s “ticket” to the lunch is to bring a non-member friend. Besides providing a delicious lunch, it gives your organization a chance to talk about the benefits of joining your organization.

With the additional membership dues you’ll gain from the new members, you’ll be able to cover the cost of the lunch and provide any incentives you set for members.

WildApricot tip: encourage members to attend by giving them $100 if their friend ended up becoming a member too.

2) Charity Fun Run/Cycling Event

Hold a charity event like a fun run or a cycling event. During the registration process, give new participants the option of paying an additional fee to become a member of your organization. This fee should be a discount from your org’s regular membership fee to incentivize new members. Make sure your registration forms include an overview of your organization, it’s mission and the benefits of membership.

This will allow you to raise money, increase membership engagement and add more members! You can do this with any sort of fundraising event where you have a registration fee. You’ll maximize funds, boost member participation and minimize coordination costs.

3) Phone/Email Campaign

Increase your marketing efforts to boost your membership base by reaching out to prospective members through phone and email. You probably have many contact from events you’ve held or those who have subscribed to your newsletters.

Simply make a list of all prospects and segment them in your contact database. From there, you can send them targeted emails to join your organization and contact them one by one over the phone.

This is an easy initiative to do over the course of the year. If you have a lot of prospects, spread out the phone calls by making your goal to reach out to a certain number a month.

4) Networking Event

Networking events are an excellent way to attract new members. In fact, according to the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, networking with others is the number one reason why people join an association (67% as of 2024).

For example, you can mail out a networking event invite along with a free drink ticket and appetizers to non-chapter members in your community. This will spark conversations between members and prospects, leading to increased new members.

5) Annual Conference in a New Location

Your organization may host an annual conference, but how often do you switch up the location?

Especially if your organization has membership spread across the country, you might want to consider choosing new cities each year to host. By choosing a new city, you can advertise the conference to different communities and reach prospects easily. During the event, promote the benefits of joining your organization and you’ll see a drastic increase in membership.

6) Business Spotlight

If you’re a Chamber of Commerce, or local business association, why not try hosting a Business Spotlight. Organizes an after-hours event at a local business, where members can receive a behind-the-scenes tour and get to know local business owners better — it’s always a big draw in bringing current and potential members out. Plus you’ll build relationships with the businesses, strengthening your community!

During the event you can have pamphlets with all the membership details and membership benefits listed. Don’t forget to include details on how to join your organization – including a QR code that directly links to your sign up page on your website.

7) Invite a Popular Speaker

Many associations bring in new speakers on a monthly basis to keep attracting new audiences.

In fact, this is the single strategy of TED — the nonprofit that spreads ideas through powerful talks of 18 minutes or less. Over the last 30 years, they’ve brought in nearly 100,000 speakers to speak on everything from beatboxing to self confidence. This has been so effective that on their YouTube channel alone they’ve already garnered over two billion views.

If you’re thinking of bringing in a speaker at your organization, but don’t know where to start, we put together a simple guide that can help you out.

8) Digital Ads

Ads on social networking sites, like LinkedIn and Facebook are incredibly effective digital marketing tools to bring in new members. The all-powerful algorithm promotes your advertisement to people that would resonate with your organization. How many times have you seen a promoted Facebook post that aligns with your interests but you’d never heard of them before? That’s what your digital ad can do to help you reach a new audience and gain more members.

If you’d like some help on creating Facebook ads for your nonprofit, we’ve put together a simple guide to get you started.

9) Incentivize Members to Refer

A membership referral program is a tried and true method for growing your membership. Your current members are the best advocates for your organization and will bring in a lot of new faces. It’s important to incentivize this in various ways.

Consider a program where any current member that brings a non-member to your event, meeting or conference and gets them to join, is entered into a gift basket draw. Or you can reward members who do this will a for-sure reward like a gift card to a local business.

Make sure you set your members up for success by providing them with content to share on their social media that will draw new members in!

10) Give Away a Free Resource

Providing valuable information can make a huge impact on your membership drive. If you have pieces of thought leadership, on demand webinars or educational content that you provide to your members, consider offering it to prospective members in exchange for their email address. This allows you to grow your subscribers and this will add to your marketing efforts.

Utilize these new contacts in your next email marketing campaign. Send messaging to these new individuals with information on joining your organization, sharing the benefits and testimonials of members who love your org.

Once you’ve got your membership drive idea, you’ll still need to create an easy way for new members to sign up for your organization and pay. In the next section, I’ll explain the best way to register new members.

Read More: 99 Ways To Get New Members For Your Organization

Why Paper Membership Forms Are Bad for New Members (And What to Do Instead)

Do you have paper membership forms? Do you ask new members to pay for their dues by check?Take a moment to imagine the experience that creates for new members.

They just decided to join your organization, so you hand them your new member form. To fill it out, they’ve got to sit down and find a hard surface (I’ve seen people fill out forms on the backs of others before). When they’re done, they have to find you again and hand you back the form.

Now they’ve got to pay their dues. If you don’t have a way to process payments online, they may have to go home and find their checking book or go to an ATM to get cash. Then they’ve got to mail the check/cash back to you, or remember to bring it to the next meeting.

None of this creates a great experience for a new member. In fact, it’s an outdated process that creates a lot of work, and sometimes a poor impression of the organization, especially if someone feels nagged about forgetting their check or cash.

On top of this, what happens when a new member wants to join, but isn’t physically there? What if they’ve found you on social media at home, or a current member convinces them to join over coffee?

That’s why creating a quick and simple process to register and pay for membership all at once, wherever potential members are is important — you won’t miss out on any potential members, or dues.The best way to do this is to offer online registration with payments.

In fact, organizations who switch to an online process typically see an immediate boost in registrations and payments. Check out our top picks for online payment processors here to simplify your registration process.

The Easiest Way to Set up New Member Registration

There’s software specifically made for membership organizations that makes the registration and payment process easy,  called Membership Management Software (it can also let you to set up recurring dues too).

The most popular Membership Management Software option (for eight years and running) is WildApricot. We’re used by over 20,000 organizations across the world — everything from clubs, nonprofits, professional associations, and more.

That’s because we make it super easy to set up and process online registration, payments, and recurring dues for any type of membership organization. You can start a free, 60-day trial of WildApricot here.

WildApricot can also eliminate and automate many other functions of your organization. That’s because we’re an all-in-one platform that allows you to:

• Create an Online Presence: Use our drag-and-drop website builder to create any page for your organization: About Us, Join, Events, Donation Page, Blog, Resources, Info, etc.
• Register Members and Event Attendees: Simple online registration with instant online payments.
• Create a Calendar of Events: Allow visitors to view and register for all your upcoming events.
• Show Pictures from Your Events: Add an easy slideshow gadget to any page.
• Keep All Your Contacts in a Robust Database: WildApricot updates your online database as soon as your members update their profiles or register for events. All your contacts are stored in the cloud, so any admin can access them from anywhere (we also have a free membership app for your phone).
• Add a Donation Page: Inrease online donations and generate easy financial reports.
• Communicate With Your Members: Use our simple email platform to send professionally-designed emails and newsletters to your contacts.
• Simple Online Store: Sell training resources, materials, books, and more directly from your website.
• Automate Dues, Payments, Reminders, and Invoices: Set up automated messages and WildApricot will coordinate everything else.
• Custom Branding: Customize your website however you like. Add your own logo, info, images videos, and other resources to your website.

If you’d like to see if WildApricot is right for you, start your free, 60-day trial of WildApricot now. In just an afternoon, you can have a new website, complete with instant online registration for membership and events.

“WildApricot makes it easy for members and guests to register and pay for our events online. In the first year after we switched, WildApricot helped us grow 30%.”

-Shirley Cowdrey, President, Midland & District Business Women’s Association