As I am writing this, we have gotten another dozen members than the below charts reflect.
Since our membership system went online (right after we returned from the EANGUS National Conference on August 27, 2013), our membership level has begun to grow. I attribute that growth to a combination of three things:
- Primarily because of leadership throughout the Louisiana National Guard, emphasizing the importance of Professional Organizations that specifically support The Louisiana National Guard, and the National Guard as a whole. We will be putting out more information in the coming weeks and months showing the achievements of these Associations.
- Secondly, because we have a visual way for our membership (and potential members) to view their membership information easily as well as the membership level within their unit.
- And Finally, because our Soldiers and Airmen can view these stats, join the membership, and register for conferences and social activities on their PC, phone, tablet, etc.
There is nothing more frustrating than not having the visibility needed to support membership efforts on a timely basis. Downloading spreadsheets, emailing reports, and waiting for only a handful of folks who have access to the information to create that stuff, does not cut it in this day and age of technology. We have created a system that show statistics in real time, without having to manually update numbers on webpages, and is viewable by our entire membership at any time of day or night. They can even pull up membership information on their phone. AND, we did it for under $1,500, which is a steal.
There are discussions with EANGUS on how to provide this capability to other states at an even lower cost. This is no longer up for debate… If you want to increase the membership of your Association, give your leaders the tools they need to track, join, and educate Soldiers and Airmen about LANGEA and EANGUS. While we have a few tweaks that we want to do on the website, and we need to get updated accomplishment materials posted as well, we are on our way to having over 2,000 members by Christmas, and hopefully 3,000 by this time next year.
