Tag Archives: membership

Why your public meetings are so sparsely attended

Leave a reply

You represent a nonprofit. Or a local government citizens committee or board. Or an activist group.

You have a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly or yearly meeting, open to the public. You want your members or the public to attend.

But meeting attendance is poor. Why?

I’ll tell you why! It’s one, or more, or ALL of these reasons:

  • You don’t make it crystal clear why the meetings happen. Why are you having this meeting? What happens at this meeting? Will I sit and hear a lecture? Will I watch a video? Will I have to offer an opinion or participate in some group exercise or vote? Can I just listen and observe? Why do you want me there? What will the meeting be like? All of these questions should be explicitly answered on your web site, in your email newsletter, on your Facebook event page, and in any other ways that you communicate about the meeting. This is the number one reason few people are coming to your meeting.
  • You put the information for the meeting in just ONE place. That one place could be your newsletter. That one place could be your web site. That one place could be a Facebook event page. Worst of all, that one place could be a PDF file somebody has to download as an attachment from email or from a web site (a lot of people don’t even bother opening a PDF). The information needs to be in multiple places. Does your city have a web site of community events and, if so, have you sent them this meeting information? What about the nearest public library? What about to civic organizations, business associations, neighborhood groups and cultural groups?
  • The meeting information isn’t updated on your web site. It’s 2019, but your web site is still talking about 2018. The upcoming meeting is in February, but your web site is still talking about December. The outdated information makes someone wonder if the meetings are still happening, even if your web site said that your group meets on the second Thursday of every month.
  • Your web site just says your group meets on the second Thursday of every month – or whatever. And that might be true, but it’s not enough to prove that this meeting really happens. Photos from the last meeting, or the minutes from the last meeting, or the focus or agenda for the next two meetings, with the actual meeting dates included, would affirm that, yes, these meetings really happen.
  • There’s no information about parking. Is free parking nearby?
  • People can’t get to your meeting by public transport easily. There’s a bus, but it only goes by every half hour, and there’s only one other bus it connects to – in a city of more than 50 buses. That means, to get to you and your hour-long meeting, most people would have to take mass transit around four hours round trip.
  • You don’t provide child care. And you probably don’t want a bored child – or more than one bored child – at your very important meeting.
  • Your meeting is at a time when I can’t attend. You didn’t survey membership or potential members and find out when the best time is for them to meet. Or you don’t offer meetings at different times – maybe every other month’s meeting could be in the evening instead of the afternoon.

There is no excuse for not addressing those first five bullets. None. Start with those. You may find that you need to ask people to RSVP for meetings and then text them a reminder, to better ensure they will attend. You may find you need to post reminders to social media as well. You may even need to look into broadcasting the meetings online, so that those who can’t attend in person can view the meeting online, perhaps even participate online as well (ask questions, vote, etc.).

If, after doing at least these first five bullets, your meetings are still poorly attended, then it’s time to sit down and call 10, 20, even 30 people you really want to attend these meetings and ask them why they can’t, or won’t, attend and if these reasons can be addressed.

Also see: