October 2009 News
Walled gardens and climbing over fences
Last week I spoke at the NCVO Membership schemes conference on what the future of membership might look like. I raised one of the key things that has struck me in our research to date: the difference between recruitment and retention for membership organisations. As Colin Rochester puts it in his Making Sense of Volunteering,
“the cocktail of motives that lead people to engage [in the first place] may be very different from the factors that maintain their involvement”
In general – and I’d...
More on whether we get what we pay for
A while ago, I wrote a piece on the ‘freemium’ model that seems to be growing in relevance as people’s patterns of consumption of information and products, and their willingness to pay for them.
If you are interested in this topic and have a spare few minutes over the weekend, you might like to take a look at this slideshow (warning - there are 263 slides). Since we're all time poor, I thought I'd highlight that of particular interest to membership organisations are slides 200, 216 and 217...
Social media and membership organisations
The apparent threat (or opportunity) that social technology presents to membership organisations is summed up in the subtitle to Clay Shirky’s zeitgeisty book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of organizing without organizations. If ‘everybody’ can organise action by themselves (or rather, together), what possible reason is there for organisations to exist?
The first answer is, of course, that ‘everybody’ is not coming quite yet. Older people in particular – precisely those who,...
Ready for change? Highlights from the Conservative Party conference
After Labour’s conference (see here for my thoughts), last week was the Conservatives’ turn. As the party steams ahead in the polls, all eyes were on them in the hope that the conference would provide us with a better idea of some of the things they would do if their poll ratings translate into success at the ballot box. One of the main criticisms levelled at them has been their lack of concrete policies. Though realistically this is probably to be expected of a party not in government that...
How important is the voluntary sector in public service delivery?
As we approach the chancellor’s autumn statement and a likely general election in Spring 2010 the debate over public spending levels is in full swing. What’s more, the language of cuts is now official government terminology: it’s no longer if, it’s now when, and how much. Everything is under review, which organisations in the voluntary sector – who are both delivering services to users and fighting for their rights – both fear and welcome. The mood is one of both trepidation and...
The Labour party conference, their priorities and the power of the media
Party conference season is often a time of great political plotting, posturing and blunders so will this year’s conferences hammer the last nail into in the coffin of either of the two main parties? Or will they give us a clearer sense of what the parties would do if they were to win the next General Election? A successful conference for Labour or equally a bad performance by the Conservatives could mean the outcome of the General Election is still very much up for grabs.
This week was the...
