Perspectives: NRPA is growing; as membership categories are explained, more members return to the association.

While interviewing for the NRPA executive director s position four years ago, NRPA's elected leadership asked me to grow NRPA's membership. These leaders understood that a growing association was needed to effectively serve its members and the field. They knew that a growing membership translates to more professionals and citizens sharing information about the best practices, more professionals and citizens advocating for better park and recreation policies at the national and local levels, not to mention increased dues revenue, which provides a means to provide better products and services.

Soon after accepting the appointment, a close friend called to offer congratulations and to say he wanted to be my very first recruit.

"I went to the NRPA Web site," he said, "but I couldn't figure out how to join."

Apparently, he found NRPAs 16 different membership categories and 25 dues rates far too complicated.

Vowing to make good on my membership growth pledge, I turned to staff with savvy marketing skills. I asked the team to apply their knowledge and experience toward growing membership, but they also brought up challenges to the goal. After considering the task, they concluded that it would be difficult to market simultaneously to 16 different groups of individuals.

Based on this feedback, we decided to dramatically reduce the number of membership categories as a prerequisite to growing the membership. And, after a comprehensive study, we recommended and the Board of Trustees adopted the current membership structure which reduces 16 membership categories to six, and 25 dues rates to 10.

Simplifying membership was not simple at all, and implementing this structure became much more of a challenge than anticipated.

Many members confused by the change simply delayed their membership renewals. Suddenly, NRPA's membership numbers, which are tracked on a monthly basis, started to fall dramatically. By March of last year, NRPA's membership was 12 percent less than at the same time the previous year.

Based on considerable feedback that the sudden drop was due to poor communication about the new membership structure and dues rates, we decided we needed better outreach to re-establish personal contact. Membership Operations Manager Claudia Contreras put together a staff team that made more than 4,000 individual phone calls.

The results were astonishing--by May, the membership decline began to reverse itself, and membership has been increasing dramatically ever since. By Sept. 30, NRPA's core membership stood at 19,717, which is almost 1,700 (or nine percent) more than the count at the same time last year. Our membership will soon exceed 20,000, and we have even a higher goal to reach by June 30, the end of our fiscal year.

In addition to increasing membership, NRPA has had many other success stories this year. Turn to page 63 for the full annual report.

John Thorner

NRPA Executive Director