What are you bad at?

[kulps @ ENTS Edmonton]

Hey everyone,

Some of the ENTS team is heading off to a non profit leadership conference this weekend and to get in the mindset of it all we're trying to do a review of where we're really missing the mark and how we can fix that. 

It's not a super novel idea, but it is effective. Evaluate what you're bad at and find a way to fix it. Sometimes it's easier than just thinking about what you could do better. 

For a long time at ENTS we've known we were just terrible at managing our memberships. 

• Whose membership is current?
• When does it expire?
• What rate did they pay? 
• Have they missed a month or two? 
• How many members do we have? 
• How much money does that bring in each month? 
• etc. 

We finally bit the bullet and bought a member management system called A Member Pro. We've been using it for the last few months and it's already shown to be hugely advantageous for us. We'll be posting about it shortly. 

Going forward, we're hoping to try and find more faults in our processes and improve on them. 

Possibly our next big issue is new member engagement. After somebody signs up, how do we get them engaged with the rest of the community and make them want to come back. Currently I suspect an appreciable number of our new members do not renew their membership after the first couple months. (We'll have more stats on this soon as A Member Pro will make these stats easier to report on.)  Some will obviously be lost causes in that they've changed their mind on wanting to be a member, they thought it would be something it's not or maybe they finished their project and don't need the space anymore. It's the people who forget they have a membership or don't think it's worth it because there's not enough cool stuff happening or what have you. We need to find a way to engage them and make them want to come back. 

I believe Protospace had a buddy system for a while, where new members were assigned a buddy and a project to work on. I don't remember the details exactly but perhaps one of their directors can chime in with how it worked. 

So, all of that aside, what are you bad at? Maybe we can find a solution together. 

[Matt Freund]

> Some of the ENTS team is heading off to a non profit leadership conference

That's a thing?

> For a long time at ENTS we've known we were just terrible at managing our
> memberships.

Us (Protospace, Calgary) too. We used to do it manually, then we
didn't do it at all for years. Literally no way to know when you'd
last paid, when you were due again, how much money was coming in and
going out every month. We stagnated for those couple years.

Then one of our directors (Byron) wrote magical software. Like,
actually wrote it, unlike the so-stereotypical-it's-a-hackerspace-meme
15 previous "I'm a programmer and this is a trivial task, I'll write
that" people over the years. And his works. And it works great. We've
grown probably 100% since then and we can tell where our money is
going.

Seeing as how we're 200+ members now, our 1 main administrator
probably puts less work into running the organization than 6 directors
in the past had to when we had 30 members... and with much larger
impact.

On a related note, we've been automating as much as we can. Byron's
been splitting his time between maintenance administrivia and
improving processes for the future. Which means little things fall
through the crack short-term, but longer-term we're better off. I
think that's a good lesson for us too, in order to handle growth
without burnout you have to get ahead and make the place easier to
run. Don't distract yourself with all the little things that could use
doing because you'll never run out of them. Just draw a line and spend
time investing in the future.

When Titus (UnLondon) was in town he told us that their space doesn't
do one-off payments. It's reoccuring payments or nadda. We didn't go
that far, but we pressure newbies into it as much as possible. A
series of paypall links has handled that and helped tremendously.

Not only does it make processing easier, it's integrated to our
finance system so that's updated automatically. And, despite there
being no sinister barrier to quitting, it puts laziness on our side.
I'm sure lots of members have automated paypal membership who, if they
had to decide to pay, would choose not to. But since they're
automated, they don't bother to turn it off. If people have so much
money that they don't need $600/year, wonderful, because we do.

> Possibly our next big issue is new member engagement. After somebody signs
> up, how do we get them engaged with the rest of the community and make them
> want to come back.

This is going to sound greedy and stupid, but probably the biggest
thing that helps members stick around and make use of the space... is
getting them to pay more up front.

Everyone who visits a Makerspace is like "Oh wow, look at all the
things I *could* do" but then life happens and it takes a while for
the ball to get rolling and moving on a project, and then in the first
month they don't use it and then disappear because they see "Well I
didn't really use it".

Instead, we encourage them use a "temporary" promotion of 3 months for
the price of 2 upfront. Everyone thinks that's a great deal, so they
do that. And, once they've paid for 3 months, chances are they'll find
time to come back and find something to do. Much more likely than if
they commit to 1 month. Members have told me they probably would not
have come back had they not paid for 3 months, but were glad they did,
so, it's not just good for us. It's good for members too.

So, one impact is that we see members stick around longer (and longer
than just 3 months, they actually get their foot in the door with a
project).

A second impact is that, if a drive-by member is going to be a
drive-by member... at least we get 2 months dues out of them instead
of 1. That makes the (still) wasted effort of grooming them to join,
sting only half as bad. If I spend 3 hours with a newcomer walking
them around and answering questions, $50 isn't great, $100 is kind of
worth my time.

> We need to find a way to engage them and make them want to come back.

Regular, scheduled, training classes.

It's obvious and easy to say, but it really makes all the difference.
The lathe/mill training is only every 3 months? People wait in line to
learn it, even if they never yet use the space. To entice them with
things to regularly learn and do in the future, keeps them around.

The importance of this can't be understated. It might increase your
retention 3x.

> I believe Protospace had a buddy system for a while, where new members were
> assigned a buddy and a project to work on. I don't remember the details
> exactly but perhaps one of their directors can chime in with how it worked.

Not a director, but, nope.

As part of our membership process, Month #1 is probationary. No card
access, no storage. Within your first month, you have to take the
safety training and new member orientation (culture/how we work)
class. And, you have to find 2 sponsors. That means at least 2 people
have to have had a conversation with you and didn't think you were a
jackass.

Originally I think the sponsor idea was to be like a buddy system,
but, it's never worked that way.

The vetting process is a bit of a joke, everyone passes, but newbies
don't know that. I tell them it's good to try to come down each
Tuesday and meet people during their probationary month, and to think
of something they can do to contribute to the community. Even if they
don't, it gets them thinking about it. And it opens conversations
about how they can get involved.

> So, all of that aside, what are you bad at?

Right now we're probably worst at having an actual
introduction/welcome package. A pamphlet or FAQ or something to give
people that walks them through how to take advantage of things at
Protospace. We're really missing out on a lot of effort and engagement
because we're: A - wasting time telling people one at a time, and B -
when people don't ask they sometimes never find out.

It's a solvable problem, just needs effort thrown at it.

[Jodi Stark]

Thanks for this post.
I'm with the Vancouver Community Laboratory (CoLab). We are terrible at member management. I'm very interested in A Member Pro - it seems really cheap $179 for lifetime!? That seems too good to be true! How has it been working? What are it's best features? What are its drawbacks?

One thing this doesn't appear to have is some kind of membership card. We're thinking that it would be great to have a scannable card, like when you go to the gym or library. Any one have something like that?

Thanks!

[Vincent Wolfe]

I think the thing that we are worst on is spreading out the administrative work.  Currently it is all me, and that makes me avoid wanting to do it.

Next is community involvement.  One of our primary goals is to make sure we are a pillar in Central Alberta.  As a new space I think this is forgivable, but it will be a focus of mine very soon.