Hard facts:
Current membership as of this morning is 56,452. Of those, 9,907 have email on file, and said “yes” to taking e-pubs. So, only 17.5% of the membership saves their Local Group the cost of a newsletter.
In 2006, the average cost of newsletters (printing and postage) was $.74 per member per month. Since then, postal rates have jumped at least twice and paper costs have gone up significantly, also. My guess is that an average newsletter now costs around 80-90 cents per copy. I will certainly be finding data on this as part of the LGS&F project.
Yes, electronic subscribers save their groups money— but when you consider how few of those types of members there really are, the financial impact on a Local Group of a that sort of member who does not renew is practically non-existent. Additionally, I suspect the silent, do-nothing members Groups are counting on to increase the coffers are not the ones who ever bothered to get off their butts and check the e-pubs option in the first place.
In short, I assert that members who do not renew have no detrimental financial impact on their Local Group.
There is, however an impact to all of us when someone leaves the organization-- that is one less interesting person to meet, one less potential volunteer. So please don't think I'm blasé about members quitting because they don't like the Bulletin. We do periodic surveys of readers to make sure we're creating a publication that meets all absolute needs and most wants, and we will continue to gather and react to members' feedback.
4 comments:
So let me see if I get this right. You can't follow the financial explanation that was offered, yet you assert that it is wrong, and continue to insist that there is no financial impact to a group from a member leaving?
Then let's put it in more simple terms, and I won't even include numbers, as they seem to make your eyes and logic glaze over.
1. A group gets money in form of local group funding for every member assigned to it.
2. If a member leaves Mensa for any reason, the local group stops getting the local group funding for that member.
3. Therefore, there IS a financial impact to the local group if a member leaves.
Can you follow that logic? It seems simple enough for even non-financial people to follow.
No need to be snotty, Mr. or Ms. Anon! I understand numbers quite well, thank you.
If a Local Group stops getting 84¢ for a member who does not renew and also stops spending 84¢ or more for services to that member, then the impact to the Local group is zero.
If the member who did not renew was getting his or her newsletters electronically, then yes, there is some financial loss to the group.
How many members quit because of the quality of the Bulletin AND take electronic publications? I am sure there must be a few, but I doubt there are many.
I pointed out that you dismissed the argument out of hand after stating that you didn't follow it. I don't think I was the one being snotty when I simplified it for you.
If the full amount spent on any member is variable cost, and if that amount spent is equal to the local group funding amount, then indeed, there is no financial impact if that particular member leaves. But is that really how it works? If all are on paper, then every member contributes to the fixed costs, and every one who leaves is no longer able to contribute to the fixed cost, therefore those that are left must bear the cost. If all money available was already being spent on the newsletter, then any member leaving would create a financial detriment to the group, because he/she is not there to contribute to the fixed cost. If some are electronic, then the detriment goes up.
I don't know how many members leave because of publications. Whatever the reasons they leave, it has a financial impact when they do. The effect may be small or it may be large, but there is an effect. That's the only point I wanted to make. It has nothing to do with you personally, or anyone else who works on the Bulletin.
This is all about someone taking a molehill and trying to make a mountain out of it. Sure, I don't like the readability problems that came with the Bulletin redesign, but when I did my annual cost-benefit analysis coincident to renewing, the Bulletin never came up. And it never came up in a recent on-line discussion of why we renew or do not renew.
I think that it is important to have a well-designed, interesting, and informative house organ, and I want those involved in its publication to recognize that design is not an end in itself, but I have a lot of trouble seeing the Bulletin as a deal-breaker when it comes to making the decision to renew. Come to think of it, I seriously doubt that the Bulletin is why people join, either. Heck, if I need/want/desire to read a magazine, I can grab one at the grocery store tomorrow. We join for validation and social interaction. We don't join to get a magazine, well-designed/interesting/informative though it may be.
As to how much money goes where, because I am not a member of a local group, a portion of my dues payment goes to a sig which I did not choose to join in order to send me a newsletter which I find boring and a waste of my time. I want that money to go to support the online community, but that's not the way things have always been done, so I'm not holding my breath. And yet I chose to renew my membership, because even with $8+ of my dues payment going to waste the benefits of membership still justify the cost.
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