1. Give a special incentive to top line signers of new petitioners (Pins, clothing, certificates etc).
2. Plan a Guest Night for potential candidates.
3. Identify your most at-risk members and target them for additional contact.
4. Do a member survey of your least active members. Let those who respond know that you are listening to them by telling them that you will try to do what they suggested on the survey.
5. Get members involved in focus groups by email or blogs (new members may prefer this type of involvement.)
6. Send out a monthly email newsletter that is sent out simultaneously with the mailed
publication.
7. Along with the Mentor Program, have a New Member Designated Contact group.
8. Contact top line signers from the previous year. Thank them and ask them for continued involvement with the new candidate. Ask them to continue with new member recruitment.
9. Develop a new member newsletter and send it out quarterly to all members who have been raised within the last year. Include educational materials as well as an up-to-date calendar and incentives to become involved (except for the calendar, the same correspondence can be used each year).
10. Create a new member section on your website.
11. Develop a list of your (most wanted) delinquent or dropped new members and ask lodge officers to make personal appeals to reconsider their membership. Consider calling their “Top Line Signer”. Make a time line to get the results to the Master.
12. On the night when a petition is to be voted on, ask the petitioner to be available. If he is elected, call him and have him meet with the brothers after the meeting to be congratulated.
13. Send a “How Are We Doing?” survey to new members six months after they are raised. If they don’t return them, give them a call.
14. Create a “thank you” list which includes the names and contributions of active members. Place this list in your newsletter, on your website, and read it in open lodge.
15. Ask individual Past Masters to be liaisons with other Masonic organizations and to regularly report their activities in open lodge.
16. Conduct stated meetings on the first degree if you have an Entered Apprentice who can attend. Make him feel welcome.
17. Assign new members to make detailed notes on Guest Nights, fund raisers, community activities, and social events. Save those notes in a computer file to be used for future planning references.
18. Announce a membership goal of getting one new member for every twenty-five (25) members each year.
19. Send a special communication and possibly a small token gift to each brother who lives out of town thanking them for their continued participation and loyalty to your Lodge. Make up Lodge pens, vehicle decals, cups or maybe key chains as gifts.
20. Publish a summary of important highlights from the Grand Lodge session and Area Conferences on the lodge’s website and newsletter.
21. To promote attendance at a future meeting, publish an interview and/or biography with the featured speaker in the newsletter and/or on your website.
22. Find out what ideas are working for other organizations and discuss them at officers’ meetings.
23. Make a file of those members who have dropped their membership in years past and send them a “We Want You Back” letter. Include the reasons they have dropped in the file.
24. Designate one officer to closely monitor brothers who are shut-ins or who are hospitalized.
25. Never have officers’ meetings before a regular stated meeting but, instead, direct your officers to socialize with all of the attendees.
26. The Master should occasionally meet with your Sr. and Jr. Wardens alone and discuss lodge issues to be sure all are on the same page.
27. Appoint a communications chair and direct him to make and submit news releases to the local press with photographs immediately following installations, community projects, and unique lodge activities. He should also submit articles concerning upcoming fund raisers.
28. Hold a “Fathers & Sons Night” (Perhaps in conjunction with other Lodges).
29. Ask officers and active members to relate their most valued Masonic experiences or benefits and use those statements as quotes for recruitment and retention purposes.
30. Place a downloadable petition on your Lodge web site.
31. Keep an eye on Grand Lodge publications. Look for up-coming dates and successful ideas from other lodges.
32. Ask your District Representative to report on successful events at other Lodges.
33. Send hand-written notes to the chairman of lodge events thanking them for their service.
34. Assign the task of taking an inventory of promotional Masonic brochures and other publications. Make note when supplies are low and have them replenished when appropriate.
35. Get new members nametags ASAP so that they can be recognized at a glance. Make sure the name is in large print.
36. Assign new members to minor management and planning positions as soon as possible and identify one person (or persons) they can call for advice and help.
37. Hold a “town meeting” for the general membership to show that the leadership really cares about their concerns and ideas.
38. Make an annual safety inspection of the lodge building and repair problem areas. Consider installing a first-aid kit and possibly a defibrillator. Ask the new Brothers to help you.
39. Have name tags available at events such as dinners so members get to know other members and spouses.
40. Select a group of less active members as a focus group and give the group a specific task.
41. Check the answering service on the lodge phone regularly for calls from potential members.
42. Ask one Past Master per month to write an article about his experiences for the newsletter.
43. Get on the mailing list of other lodges in your area.
44. Develop a “Congratulations” message you can send to members who have taken positions in other Masonic organizations or have been promoted in their personal life.
45. Interview new members and ask them why they joined. Use this information as an insight for future recruitment programs.
46. Copy newspaper or other publication articles that mention your lodge in a favorable way and include them in your newsletter.
47. Invite Brothers to speak at a dinner on non-Masonic topics such as their professions.
48. Ask the secretary to create and send out a “Thanks for Renewing Your Membership” letter or card to each NPD when they pay their dues.
49. Have secretary send “welcome and thank you for joining” letter or card to new members.
50. IMMEDIATELY send the candidate registration form to the Grand Lodge office when received. Include their mailing information as well as their mentor contact information. This form is the detachable form on the blue petition and, when sent in, the candidate will receive a quantity of great information from the Grand Lodge Secretary.
51. Read any and all communications from the Grand Lodge Membership and Leadership committees at each lodge officers’ meeting.
52. Report updates of membership goals on the website, in the newsletter and in lodge.
53. Play Grand Lodge Membership videos at lodge meetings two or three times a year and discuss them.
54. Supply each newly raised Mason with a DVD from the Grand Lodge entitled “What Every New Mason Should Know.”
55. Conduct a practice “investigative interview” at a stated communication and discuss how to use this interview as the beginning of the bonding process for the new candidate.
56. Attend Masters and Wardens meetings to find out what other lodges are doing for membership retention and recruitment activities.
57. Have the Master’s wife, or another informed officer’s spouse, send a letter of welcome to the new petitioner’s wife offering to answer her questions about the Fraternity.
58. Invite top line signers of petitions to be special guests at a lodge meeting. Pay for their meal and have the Master ask them to sit in the East with him.
59. Make sure that every new Brother has SOMETHING TO DO AND SOMETHING TO LEARN.
60. Remember to invite all petitioners to any dinners or events that are open to the public. This should include dinners held before stated meetings.
61. Host a get-together for member’s wives and the wives of newly raised brothers as well as the wives of petitioners.
62. Make a list of former active members who have not attended within the last year and develop a process to encourage them to attend in the future.
63. Construct a bulletin board containing photos and information and on new members and have it placed as you enter the lodge so that all brothers can identify and greet them properly.
64. When someone is ill or has to miss a Lodge meeting, give him a call, write a note or send an e-mail.
65. Provide an occasional questionnaire to get feedback from members. If problems or dissatisfactions are detected, take steps to fix it.
66. Involve all members in setting realistic and creative membership goals. People who participate in setting some of the objectives are more committed to reaching the goal.
67. Keep in touch with inactive and former brothers through invitations to social events and a yearly update on Lodge news and events.
68. Have a social gathering for all members who have joined your Lodge within the past 12 months. It’s an opportunity for newer members to ask questions, share experiences, and get to know each other on a more personal basis.
69. Find the most capable, most enthusiastic and dynamic person you can for your Membership Chairman and treat him well.
70. Make it a big deal when a new member is qualified to move on to the next degree. Give him some type of award.
71. Encourage periodic spouse activities to help insure support at home.
72. Adopt a sister Lodge in another jurisdiction. Ask a new brother to correspond with that Lodge and make report to your Lodge.
73. Recognition helps retain members. Create some goofy awards, i.e. “best ad lib ritual award”.
74. Send a news release about a member’s Masonic accomplishments to his company’s newsletter. If a brother is promoted in his job, mention it in the Lodge newsletter.
75. Sponsor a DeMolay Chapter or Jobs Daughters Bethel and encourage their fathers to join.
76. Be committed to ritual excellence.
77. Keep a positive attitude; it increases energy and each member's self esteem.
78. Become more community minded. Become actively involved with a local charity and make it an annual event.
79. Give members worthwhile jobs and then let them do them. Involve lots of brothers to avoid burning out the brothers who always volunteer to carry the load.
80. Find unique ways to give more individual recognition to those brothers who deserve it.
81. Encourage members to give periodic testimonials about what membership means to them.
82. Encourage attendance at Area Conferences and the Grand Lodge Annual Session. Find creative ways to provide financial support for members who attend.
83. Call absent members, letting them know they’re missed without making them feel guilty.
84. Keep an updated Lodge roster in the hands of all members with current phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses.
85. Provide a yearly calendar to all members and have it ready before your Annual Installation.
86. Send cards and flowers to those who are ill, have had a recent death in the family, or have something to celebrate, such as marriage, a new baby, or some other special occasion. Have some appropriate cards on hand for such occasions.
87. Allow a Lodge member to drop his membership without making him feel guilty.
88. Do something every year for your Masonic Widows.
89. Consider giving a scholarship to the child or grandchild of one of your deceased members. Have a new brother make the contact.
90. Have members send in names and addresses of family members who they wish would join. Send an encouraging letter and promotional material to those potential Brothers.
91. Make personal contact with those brothers who did not complete their degree work.
92. Keep your Lodge building clean, attractive and well maintained. Plan a cleanup day and have the new Brothers help.
93. At least twice per year make a special effort to pick up older members for Lodge meetings
94. Consider buying matching Masonic shirts, caps or ties. (It’s a group thing)
95. Take a part of each meeting to openly discuss what purpose the brothers want to fulfill as a Lodge and how they want to proceed in accomplishing their goals
96. Share your Lodge hall with other Non-Profit organizations in the community and invite those organizations to your lodge’s fund raisers and public events.
97. Invite other Masonic organizations to give presentations at your Lodge.
98. Have one formal meeting each month and one “special activity” meeting.
99. Conduct a kids ID event and have a knowledgeable brother available to answer membership questions.
100. (This space reserved for your idea.)
