Membership Retention Rates

[RADIOMAN015]

Reported CAP HQ "road show" slide briefing, held at MA wing annual conference:
FY 08 Retention Rate:
Senior Member Nationwide: 62%
Seninor Member MA Wing:  67.5%
Cadet Member:  46.9%
Cadet Members MA Wing:  55.1%

Has anyone seen stats published for each wing & if so on line source?

RM

 

[Eclipse]

Membership totals for each wing are in the Report To Congress, though I have never seen anything on retention rates.

I'd be curious as to how they got to those numbers, because a retention rate that low would have us more like under 40,000 members.

My Wing's retention on the senior side has to be more like 80+%.

[RiverAux]

Retention rates are the percentage of people that were members at some point in the past and that are still members now.  It doesn't account for the new members that you recruited during that period.

[RADIOMAN015]

Reported CAP HQ "road show" slide briefing, held at MA wing annual conference:
FY 08 Retention Rate:
Senior Member Nationwide: 62%
Senior Member MA Wing:  67.5%
Cadet Member:  46.9%
Cadet Members MA Wing:  55.1%

Forgot, it was also reported that apparently HQ CAP is happy that MA wing is above "the indicators".    I wonder how CAP as an organization compares with American Red Cross, Scouts, and even volunteer FD & EMS organizations? 

I've got to wonder IF you have a long term member who leaves the organization, whether someone at National Headquarters would take note and at least send a letter and/or email to the former member trying to find out why they left the organization?
RM   

[wingnut55]

Hear no Evil, See no Evil, Speak no Evil,

[RiverAux]

National does at least occassionally survey former members.  The public affairs folks posted a link in one of their updates a while back to a page with the results of one of them. 

[Short Field]

I was playing with SIMS two years ago and loaded the current CAPWATCH database.  It didn't work for us then as the Squadron didn't have Access.  I have since gotten computers and software packages donated that included Access.  So a couple of months ago I upgraded SIMS and put in the current CAPWATCH database again.

I knew last year was a bad year as we went from over 110 SMs to less than 80 SMs.  The 110 number had been fairly constant for a few years.  However, according to SIMS, over the last two years we had over 130 SMs - of which less than 80 are members now.

The percentage lost based on eServices numbers is 73% but according to SIMS it is actually 62%.

We need to be putting more effort into retention than recruiting. 

[RiverAux]

Retention rates are ALWAYS going to be fairly bad for cadets because of the nature of the program and the fact that kids are always discovering new interests and discarding old ones. 

Senior retention rates are a bit more stable and useful of a statistic.  However, you have to separate out the retention rates for new members from those of established members. 

For example, the retention rate for brand new members is always going to be worse than you retention rate for members that have been in for more than 5 years.  You're going to lose a certain percentage of new members who joined and found out the program wasn't for them -- even in absolutely great squadrons. 

I would worry if you see a sudden loss of experienced members for reasons other than old age/retirement and relocations.  If you lose a bunch of people who've been in for 5+ years, you have a problem in your program. 

I would say that you're probably doing okay if more than half of the senior members who join renew their memberships for a second year.   If you're losing more than half of your new members, something is wrong in your unit. 

As for shortfield's unit, I have a very hard time imagining a unit with over 100 active senior members.  That is WAY outside the norm for a CAP unit.  An average CAP unit is only going to have about 30 members.   

[ZigZag911]

I'd really like to see senior retention better than losing 2 of 5 nationally (1 in 3 for MA WG).

The cadet situation is simply the nature of the program, and the age range involved --there's going to be high turnover, keeping half or better is actually pretty good.

[Short Field]

We have six squadrons in town.  The two Senior Squadrons have at least 70+ members apeice.   We were over 100 for a few years but we had a really outgoing Sqdn CC who worked at interfacing with potential new members.

Reguarding new members - that is the group we need to be working at retaining.  We had a policy that they had to attend at least three meetings before we would accept their applications   However, if you don't work at providing training opportunites to them, they start to fade.   A common complaint of a few of our more active members is that they felt they were beating their heads against the wall training to find out what to do next and then get it done.  Luckily, they each found one or two people to help guide them along before they quit.  Not all are so lucky and that is fault of the organization.  I am not talking about people who are asking to be spoonfed but who get tired of no training being conducted month after month after month.  The new requirement for a Sqdn CC to appoint a mentor for each new member is a step in the right direction - although I keep defaulting to that role as the Sqdn CC is still studying how to do it...

[RiverAux]

Retaining members is important, but you have to be able to understand why someone may or may not leave. 

If the member joined CAP and figures out that it just doesn't interest them or who found out that they truly don't have the time to participate, you're not going to ever have a chance of keeping that person. 

The others are people that like the program, but who might leave if they
1.   aren't able to get the training they need to do what they joined to do OR
2.  might be driven off by bad local leadership (which can be demonstrated in all sorts of ways discussed hear frequently). 
3.  like the idea of the program but get driven off by boring local meetings (coffee clubs). 

[Short Field]

Sure, members quit for lots of reasons - but I see little interest in CAP to work as hard to retain members as we work on recruiting.   I belong to another other organization that faces the same issues.  Our retention in the local group I was with went way up when we made it a point to engage new members in our programs and to make them a real part of our organization.   It became THEIR organization.   When they join expecting to get a Double Mac with cheese and all we give them is a slice of baloney on a cracker - don't be surprised if they stop coming.   We promise a lot more than we often deliver - and all too often we leave members frustrated as they try to work their way through what they need to be doing to progress.  Locally, we have not had a flying exercise in almost FIVE months.  Hard to motivate and train new crews when the only way a scanner can get a ride is to pay for it himself.

[wingnut55]

Lets just look at the archer training.

in our wing we have about a 90% drop out, or never fly an archer mission.

that means for every $10,000 spent only $2,000 is used, fraud and abuse??

maybe we are picking the wrong people  to go to the classes

[RiverAux]

Sure, members quit for lots of reasons - but I see little interest in CAP to work as hard to retain members as we work on recruiting. 

Thats because recruiting can almost be an individual effort while retention is really a team issue.  I could go and recruit my tail off and bring in tons of members, but if the squadron commander and his key staff drop the ball, all the recruiting goes for naught. 

Unfortunately, in a typical CAP squadron that depends on a few members to get the work done, it is really hard to do the proper mentoring that keeps new members in.  When your "staff" is scrambling to keep the lights on, they tend to forget to try to help the new guy figure out where to get his uniform so that he can get in a plane, etc. 

[Chicago_Pilot]

Thats because recruiting can almost be an individual effort while retention is really a team issue.  I could go and recruit my tail off and bring in tons of members, but if the squadron commander and his key staff drop the ball, all the recruiting goes for naught. 

Unfortunately, in a typical CAP squadron that depends on a few members to get the work done, it is really hard to do the proper mentoring that keeps new members in.  When your "staff" is scrambling to keep the lights on, they tend to forget to try to help the new guy figure out where to get his uniform so that he can get in a plane, etc. 

This is a very good point.  Retention is up to everyone.  As a new member (February 09) I don't have a lot to offer yet, but I did write our newest Senior this month about how to get through Level 1 and obtain a uniform.  He was very happy to get the guidance from someone that just went through the same thing.  I think the new mentoring program is good, but even fairly new members can be asked to help guide brand new seniors.

[RiverAux]

In fact, it might even be better for newer members to help out since the information they've learned on procedures is probably correct and current.  The CAP member who has been in for 20 years might not really be up to date on all the info the new member needs. 

[NEBoom]

In fact, it might even be better for newer members to help out since the information they've learned on procedures is probably correct and current.  The CAP member who has been in for 20 years might not really be up to date on all the info the new member needs. 

That's a good point.  If you think about it, we're supposed to be doing the same thing with new cadets.  New cadets come in and (ideally) are soon assigned as element leaders with the responsibility of training the newer cadets that just followed them into CAP.  What you're suggesting is kind of a SM variant of the same idea.  It just might also have some of the same benefits, namely giving a newer member some responsibility right away.