Membership and dues

[patrick]

As charged by the LBVLA Steering committee, I have compiled a brief
listing of quoted membership dues employed by other bike related
organizations both in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Like any business
related, marketing effort, the pricing of our dues are a critical
decision that can best be determined through full participation of,
and careful consideration by, the members themselves.
Looking at the dues offered by the examples below, several important
questions come to mind.
Firstly, how do we balance the goal of broad membership with the need
to raise enough funding to fully realize our mission statement? In
addition, how do we make the hurdle to membership just high enough to
guard against “membership papering” or “ballot stuffing” by candidates
or interest groups who do not share our group’s interests?
With voter turnout so low, it has been common for candidates to spend
over $10 per vote in recent elections. Each member of the LBVLA will
participate in multiple votes per year. Using this simple math, one
can easily see that, in election years, each member has a potential
value of well over $50. Each member we add increases the value of
LBVLA far more than the dues potentially collected. It is this value
to the candidates where the opportunity for funding exists. Therefore
we should charge substantially less than what the members votes are
intrinsically worth. Even one potential member being dissuaded from
joining over cost is unacceptable. It is broad active membership that
will attract the participation of corporate/endowment funding sources
and the like.
Keeping our dues reasonably low must be balanced with the important
need to insure against vote manipulation by outside groups who do not
share our goals and might try to overwhelm our membership with straw
members, cyber voters, or other devices. I would guess that a $15 to
$20 per year minimum would suffice.
The rates considered have senior/junior/low income rates ranging from
$10 to $35, but it should be noted that the $45 average yearly rate
includes a shirt, subscription, store discounts and events; even the
$15 minimum offers a newsletter. We will have enough on our website
to rival any subscription, so $15 seems like a reasonable minimum—
perhaps for a senior/junior membership level. Note that the LoBV in
Austin has a $10 minimum.


However low we finally decide to set our dues, we should not overlook
the opportunity to use dues as a source of funds. All the groups
below have tiered dues depending on age, family situation, income,
participation and benefits offered. We must strongly consider what
sort of premium memberships we might want to offer and what extras
members making such a level of financial commitment might expect. At
a minimum, if $15 buys one year’s voting membership, then a more full
membership that includes perhaps a shirt, spoke card, sticker,
literature, etc. and costs $35-40 makes good sense. A $100+/yr level
of membership must also be considered (the Austin LOBV even has a $500/
yr membership level that is just a click away).
The idea of offering a “household” membership (avoids, spouse,
dependent issues) is particularly appealing because it can add to both
marginal revenues and membership numbers. In my household for
example, my wife (who bikes) would not join such a group, but I would
quickly include her in a household membership. This way, the LBVLA
would get perhaps 50% more revenue and one more member at the same
time.
Lastly, we should consider a level of membership that is free. This
would be for e voters who can’t, or won’t, pay dues to our group—for
whatever reason. By becoming a free member, they would be: unable to
vote on endorsements and other policy issues; (2) registering their
support for our efforts; (3) demonstrating to candidates the
importance of these issues by considering our endorsements; (4) able
to participate in public forums, etc. on the website (subject to
reasonable moderating); and, perhaps most importantly, (5) potentially
creating a very large interest group that could exercise real
political influence.
Sorry for this long post, but there is a great deal to consider, time
is short and, with the current memberships’ input, we need to settle
on a policy and put it in place. I have a breakdown of the 6
organizations at which I looked and will forward it shortly in a
seperate post.

Patrick

[bikinginla]

Thanks, Patrick. You give us a lot to think about.

While I advocate for some form of free memberships, my concern is that
what we offer paying members must be enough to encourage potential
members to join at the dues-paying level, rather than the free
membership. I'm not sure that the ability to vote will be enough to do
that. Maybe a minimum $10 or $12 dollar non-voting membership — a
dollar a month — would be enough to get people to sign up at the
higher voting level.

One idea I did like from the meeting was the possibility of offering a
t-shirt for slightly above the standard voting dues that would include
voting membership. And I do like the idea of a household membership.

Ted

[David Matsu]

I think Ted has a valid concern about the 'free' level, there has to be sufficient incentive to pay something, and voting rights may not be enough. I also think that people bring much more attention and commitment to things they pay for, so just boosting numbers with 'free' level people may not mean much more than padding. That said, I think it is probably a good tool for raising awareness, future recruitment, giving access to lower income people, and building a "membership" base that will look big enough to impress politicians and others.

On tiered pricing, I think it is best to set an individual and household price as Patrick describes. Membership levels above that are really a fundraising exercise so you are "selling" t-shirts, etc.

I would propose something like:

Free - you get newsletter, can view the forum, but cannot post or comment. (Facility for a 'free' member to become a full voting member by engaging in a minimal volunteer activity. This should weed out any ringers, but allow for participation for people who care but really can't afford it.)

$12 - Student, senior? (verification or trust?)

$20 - individual membership

$40 - household membership (should this be double the individual price or slight 'discount', i.e. $35 since it's often two people. Look at what other groups do...)

$65 - "Activist", "Change Maker", etc. Household membership + one schwag item

$100 - "Kingmaker", "power behind the throne", etc. Household membership + two schwag

$500 - "Founder". Lifetime membership? (In fundraising it is common to have a listed amount higher than you expect anyone to pay. It makes the other levels appear cheaper and encourages sign-ups above the minimum level. And if someone does actually pay it...great!)

Separate note that we want to collect voting status (registered or not) as people sign up and location/district. I think most pols know that raw numbers like "X people on our mailing list" don't mean much, but if we can say "X registered voters, Y in your district" we will get taken much more seriously. (Assuming those numbers are high enough of course.)

All my categories and numbers, of course, subject to best practices of other established organizations...

Thanks,

Dave Matsu