Liz Hill and Brian Whitehead believe that Friends and membership schemes are often mistakenly dismissed as ineffective and inappropriate.
Ask a few arts managers about their Friends scheme and you will undoubtedly be met by a sigh of resignation. ?It?s on my list to sort out, but isn?t a priority right now.? ?They just do their own thing and we have very little contact with them.? ?It?s full of retired do-gooders who, frankly, put normal people off joining.?
If you?re lucky, you?ll even pick up a few delicious anecdotes ? like the theatre that wanted to present The Vagina Monologues to open its new season, but, on the grounds of ?taste?, the Friends refused to arrange a first-night party.
Just occasionally you?ll meet a manager who will say ?the Friends gave us the match-funding that enabled our Lottery bid to go ahead?, or ?the £200,000 a year we make through our membership schemes means that we?re no longer dependent on local authority funding.? Sometimes you?ll even hear someone enthuse ?our fundraising campaign with the Friends was more successful than with any other group.?
Critical success factors
So why do some schemes achieve spectacular success while others languish albatross-like around the necks of disillusioned arts organisations? The answer is relatively simple. The managers of the successful ones recognise the potential of a membership scheme. They set out with a clear set of objectives as to what they want to achieve through the scheme and implement a professional programme of activity to work towards those goals, ensuring along the way that effective communication with their members underpins all their work. The less successful ones ? including those that don?t have schemes at all ? mistakenly buy into some (or all) of the following myths.
Myth 1 ? We don?t need a scheme
Perhaps you don?t, strictly speaking, need one ? just as you don?t actually need a mailing list ? but having one can make very good sense. It creates an opportunity for you to harness, formally, the goodwill of anyone who believes that the work you do is worthwhile. First of all, it can help you to identify them, and then you?re in a position to build a close relationship that can generate valuable benefits for both parties. Opponents of schemes will disagree, probably because they believe Myth 2?
Myth 2 ? Members are only in it for what they can get
OK, some will be, but so what? Aren?t you? Research suggests that theatre Friends can be grouped into two categories. The ?takers? are primarily interested in the tangible benefits they can extract from joining ? ticket discounts, advance booking, information, etc. ? but the ?givers? join primarily to demonstrate their approval of and appreciation for the work of an organisation, and are willing to give time or money or both. The trick is to ensure that the revenues generated from your ?takers? are greater than the value of the benefits you give away to keep them involved; and that, at the same time, your ?givers? are treated with the respect they expect (and deserve) in exchange for their support. In a way, your ?givers? are also in it for what they can get: namely the satisfaction of knowing they?ve helped to achieve something worthwhile.
Myth 3 ? It?s more trouble than it?s worth
Do you actually know what a scheme could be worth to you ? certainly financially, but also in terms of audience development or volunteer labour, for example? If you have a scheme already, have you tried to place an actual figure on its running costs or to calculate the lifetime value of your Friends to your organisation? Have you ever made serious efforts to market a scheme? If the answer is ?no? to any of these (and our research suggests this applies to most people) then you aren?t really in a strong position to calculate a scheme?s potential worth, are you?
Myth 4 ? Schemes attract the wrong sort of person
If this is your view, then chances are that you?re thinking about a scheme that was set up by (and possibly still run by) an enthusiastic group of like-minded individuals, who all belong to the same social class and age group, and share the same ethnic background and somewhat uncompromising view of the world. Sadly, such schemes are all too common. They may be truly unrepresentative of the range of people who appreciate the work of your organisation, and simply by existing may undermine your sterling efforts to rejuvenate your brand image. If this is the case for you, then it?s time to take control. Schemes only attract people for whom their benefits are relevant ? so, for example, if you want young people to join, give them good reasons for doing so and don?t expect them to appreciate the same benefits as their parents? generation.
Myth 5 ? Friends are unfriendly
Friendship is a two-way process, and close friendships are as much about giving support and listening to others? needs as they are about sharing mutual interests. Poorly designed schemes that fail to recognise the needs and constraints of their members, inadequate communications between the leaders of the Friends scheme and the management of the organisation, miserly benefits and a lack of recognition of the role that the Friends play can all chip away at the relationship between the two parties ? leaving that all-too-familiar hostility between the Friends and the organisation they ostensibly exist to support.
Myth 6 ? We?ve got nothing to offer
If you?re not in a position to offer ticket discounts to your Friends ? perhaps because you?re free to everyone anyway (museums and galleries) or you?re a touring organisation that has no control over ticketing, then getting the ?takers? to buy into the scheme will be an uphill struggle. But the ?givers? invariably will ? provided that you offer high-quality, non-financial benefits aimed at making them feel involved and valued by your organisation. Great for audience development? and if you feel the need to offer financial incentives too, these can be for the café or the shop. The Friends of the National Maritime Museum had to re-structure its benefits when free entry for all was introduced by the museum, yet only one-third of members failed to renew. The others remained, suggesting that the ratio of ?givers? to ?takers? is higher than you might expect.
Myth 7 ? We?ve got a mailing list instead
A membership scheme and a mailing list are not interchangeable. In fact, they are often complementary. A mailing list provides you with an opportunity to send (sometimes uninvited) information about yourself to someone who may or may not have any interest in what you?re offering. This can be effective at getting ?bums on seats? or gallery footfall, but it is a pretty ineffective mechanism for encouraging these people to build a long-term relationship with your organisation.
The problem with myths is that they have a habit of turning into truisms. Many arts managers have developed a cynical eye that focuses more on the challenges associated with the development of an effective, mutually beneficial membership scheme than on its potential for building relationships around which highly effective marketing, fundraising and audience development initiatives can be created. Perhaps it?s time they started thinking about making new friends.
Liz Hill and Brian Whitehead are co-editors of ArtsProfessional, and co-authors of ?The Complete Membership Handbook?, published last month by DSC. They specialise in providing membership consultancy and services to arts clients.
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