We make a big deal about districts that build 30-40 or more new clubs in a year, but what about districts that lost zero clubs? I think that’s a pretty amazing accomplishment. And in 2010-11, we had just one district achieve that — D49 (Hawaii). They started the year with 64 clubs, added one new club in October 2010, and renewed every single one of those 65 clubs, 100% retention!
The year before (2009-10), just one district did it as well, D33 (central California and southern Nevada), but they lost 4 clubs this year. (Here is my post on this topic a year ago.)
What’s rather interesting is that of the three districts presented with the President’s Extension award last month (August 2011) in Las Vegas (for the largest net club increase), they had some rather dismal retention rates. They were closing clubs in large numbers. The full report is here: http://mikeraffety.com/NoClubLoss.html.
D82 (India and Sri Lanka, which just spun off a new D41), built 71 new clubs (in 64 areas) last year for a net gain of 49 clubs, putting them on top of all other districts for the fourth year in a row — but lost 22 clubs along the way, for a rather dismal club retention rate of just 90.2%.
D79 (Middle East, which just spun off a new D20) built an amazing 74 new clubs last year (in 77 areas), raising them to #2 in the world and President’s Distinguished — but at the same time, closed 26 clubs, producing a club retention rate of just 91.3% (17th from the bottom).
D85 (China) built 44 new clubs (slackers! just kidding!) in 41 areas, but closed just 8, for a decent retention rate of 95.0% (about the middle of all the districts).
At the other end of the spectrum, we have 10 districts in the 87-90% club retention range. Some of them appear to be in economically depressed areas, like Michigan, Tennessee, and Arkansas, but others (Singapore, Massachusetts) are less easy to explain. These districts closed more clubs than they started, they shrank.
Member retention is something a lot of people focus on, and rightly so. The same web page above also gives an estimate of the member retention by district, with a range from 66% to 90%.
What is different about these districts that appear to retain nearly all their members? The five with the highest member retention rates are in overseas districts, starting with D76 (Japan). Yet the #6 district is D16 (Oklahoma) at 81%, so it seems clear that “mature markets” are capable of retaining members too!
The districts with poorer retention are scattered around the country; the lowest non-U.S. district is D67 (Taiwan) with 72.5%. (BTW, club retention and member retention do not appear to be closely coupled.)
Is there a lesson here? I don’t think districts have much influence over membership retention. But, they do have a lot of influence over club retention by providing motivated and trained coaches to clubs that need them, and by helping clubs even before they get to the threatened level that qualifies them for a coach.
Some districts just don’t participate in the coaching program; one district has NO coaches currently appointed, despite dozens of clubs that qualify for a coach.
Existing district recognition is focused on net club growth, which is a combination of retaining clubs as well as growing new ones. By creating recognition for districts based on club retention, we’ll help our district leaders focus on helping those struggling clubs, more than just calling them up on the phone and asking for their dues payments.
We also need to learn from the districts that are doing well. Interviews and explanations of what worked well could be shared with other districts, helping spread best practices world-wide.
Perhaps we could even have an award for the district that has the most successful club coaches!
What do the leaders from our more retention-oriented district say about their respective strategies?
Let’s find out! I’m going to go to Hawaii and interview D49’s DG from last year, Susan Gardner!
Mike, I take it that in your third-to-the-last paragraph, you’re advocating for the DDP to add a new recognition based solely upon club retention (rather than the current net growth recognition)?
Also, I recall hearing Dan Rex state at a District Trio training a few years ago that he does NOT like to see a district w/o any club loss during the year. I believe that his reasoning was that he feels that the dist. is propping up its clubs because some club loss is normal.
Do you think that it’s realistic to think that even the most effective club coaching program can prevent ALL club loss w/o some propping up by the district? Although I hate to give up on a club as much as everyone, do you agree that there is a time to give a dying club a decent burial?
With respect to member retention, I believe that the districts can have some impact. During my District Governor year, I created “the 85 challenge” in honor of the 85th anniversary of Toastmasters International and asked each club in the district to strive for at least an 85% membership retention rate. Then the names of the clubs that achieved or exceeded the 85% goal were posted on the district website. Although we didn’t average 85% retention for the district as a whole, I believe that the rate was higher than it otherwise would have been w/o such a promotional.
Dori, no, I’m not proposing a change to the DDP already, only suggesting that we could add recognition for club retention, similar to the existing President’s Extension award for net club growth. There two district awards already outside of the DDP, President’s Extension and also President’s 20+ (for highest percent of clubs at 20+), they’re also presented at the August Hall of Fame.
Yes, like any metric, one can game the system. But in a small district like Hawaii, I believe it’s quite possible that they didn’t have any clubs that “needed” to be closed last year. There are indeed times when a club simply cannot be saved, and propping them is doing no one any favors.
The district can very definitely help clubs improve their quality and retain members, but it’s indirect. I’m glad your district focuses on this!
Current International Director Viki Kinsman had no club loss during her term as District Governor in 2003-2004. Just an FYI.
It seems like there’s about one district every year that accomplishes this — in 2009-10, it was D33 (central California and southern Nevada).
Was looking for this stat, in your stats. What is the average retention rate for individual clubs. in TI. is the number available by district. ?
Cole, yes, you can find the retention rate for each district over time in the district annual reports that I do. Go to http://reports2.toastmasters.org/, click on your district number, then Annual Reports, then 2011-12 under “Annual Directories”. I’m about to start working on the 2012-13 ones shortly.