Attendees: NC Shelly Ohren, PNC Monte Mayer, PNC Norman Rosenshein, PNC Warren Dolny, NJA Alan Cornblatt, Bob Richter, Don Feldman, Hannah Deutch, Elliott Donn, Jerry Farris, Maxwell Colon, Jerry Blum, Debbie Stern, Mrs. Bailor, Murray Runin, Herb Matt, Mike London , Joe Kraut, Harvey Chowder, Joseph Fleischman
Staff: NED Herb Rosenbleeth; DOO Larry Richardson; Nikki Salzman, Greg Byrne
Subject: Finding and Recruiting New Members
- How do we engage the 80,000 potential members who served from Desert Storm to the present?
- Finding new members
- Contact individuals who have served in the Desert Storm through Afghanistan era and invite them to Post meetings, give them recognition/awards for their service
- Once we have members from Desert Storm through Afghanistan, we should use them as outreach people to get new, younger members
- When you serve VA Hospitals, you come in contact with patients, approach them, encourage them to join.
- Go to military bases
- Ask friends and neighbors about who they know who may be a potential member
- Always look at the Post 100 list – it’s very helpful and a great way to convert people into active members
- Ask new members for names and numbers of other potential members – when someone becomes and advocate for JWV, you’ll be able to tap into their friend community
- JCC is a good recruiting ground: Many JCCs are interested in hosting programming – they also want our members to be their members, so it can be a symbiotic relationship – you just need to ask
- Remember: membership is free while in service and for one year after service
Applications
- Try to get potential members to fill out the application when they’re with you. Then you can bill them for the dues later. This gets people to act on membership right away
- Follow up with people who take applications
- Belong to a lot of veterans councils and participate – you may run into some Jewish people, which can lead to recruiting them as members
- One Post is experimenting with the idea of having web cams at their meetings so that everyone is able to attend the meeting. Helps eliminate barriers for younger members who have family obligations and are unable to get out to a meeting.
- Talking to potential recruits:
- You need to put a positive spin on everything that you say about the organization
- Let these new members know that we’re looking for fresh insight, new ideas
- Practice your recruitment speech – you can’t stutter – you need to sound polished, so people know that you’re proud of this organization
- Get a JWV business card that you can hand off to potential members
- Dress appropriately
- Communicate with clarity
- Programming ideas: Younger generation doesn’t want to join unless they feel like they’re doing something worthwhile, so we need to emphasize the importance of our programming
- Sponsor job fairs : these vets want to network – if they think it will help them get a job, then they’ll consider joining
- Have a father-daughter/father-son/mother-child type program – people are proud of their service and may be drawn to an organization that allows them to pass this pride on to their children. It makes JWV a family affair
- Let younger veterans join the local legislative committee – this is something that might interest them , since it would let them get things done
- Publicity
- Advertise: it will cost you money, but it will give you exposure to your Jewish community
- When you have an upcoming event, send this information to the local and Jewish papers
- If we advertise and get publicity, we can let these younger vets know that we’re doing great programs that they can be a part of – they can give back to other vets that need help
- Dues
- All Posts should make it a point to get current members paid up for 2013 as soon as possible.
- In the Dept of NJ, members who hadn’t paid dues in 4 years were sent a personal letter. Also enclosed was a preaddressed envelope with their name in the corner.
- They coordinated with Quartermasters so they knew what was happening.
- The Dept got an extremely good response from this
- This is a good way to get people to pay up in a timely fashion
