Membership: Five Simple Steps to Help Your Auxiliary Reach 100% Plus

Five Simple Steps to Help Your Auxiliary Reach 100% Plus in Membership

Have you made your Christmas list yet? I have.

At the top of my list is for every Auxiliary and Department to be at 100% plus by December 25. If we don’t reach that, how about a better membership percentage than the one you had this time last year? Every Auxiliary should be able to hit that goal! Some Auxiliaries have already accomplished that goal, along with the goal of 100% plus! That is just AWESOME!

How can we accomplish this? Every Auxiliary can reach 100% plus with five simple steps:

• It is the holiday season and we will be gathering with family and friends. Are all of your family members and friends (that are eligible) members of our organization? After a Recruiter Training session I was recently teaching, an attendee came up to me and said, “You made me think back and I have close to 20 family members that are eligible.” How many of your family members are eligible under the same veteran that gave you the opportunity to be a member of this organization? A great gift would be to pay for their membership in the Auxiliary!
• Ask members of your Post if they have eligible family members who are not members of the Auxiliary. Joining the Auxiliary would be a thoughtful way to honor their veterans’ service to our country, and would put more people in the Auxiliary to help with all the different programs.
• It is very important that we follow up to see if a potential member is interested or needs help finding eligibility documents. All too often we give potential members an application, and in the midst of all the excitement, we forget to ask for their contact information for follow up.
• Make sure your Auxiliary’s Officers have their dues paid before December 31. It would be sad for them to be removed from office because of something that is easy to fix. Another option is to encourage them to become a Life Member so they never have to worry about if they paid their dues or not.
• Bake some holiday treats and bring in some laptops and help teach your members that are computer-challenged how to activate their MALTA account. While in MALTA, show them how to pull up their card and pay their dues online. A majority of members own smartphones that are capable of accessing MALTA as well. Invest a few minutes in teaching them how to navigate some of the more common tasks on their smartphone. It will make them feel more a part of the Auxiliary, and that they are not being left behind.

As of the writing of this blog post, we are several percentage points behind last year. I know everyone is working hard for membership, however, let us dig a little deeper and give an extra push to get caught up. Remember if EVERYONE recruits JUST ONE new member, and we get all of our continuous members to pay their dues, we will have no worries! As I always say, “it all starts with JUST ONE!”

Have a wonderful holiday season filled with both new and paid continuous members!