American Legion post and district revitalization efforts provide an opportunity for members currently residing at a department headquarters post to transfer to a post in or near their community. It’s also an opportunity to sign up new members and check out other veterans.
Revitalization efforts can be held in a post or community space where post, district and department leadership participate. During the National Membership Workshop in Indianapolis on July 29, attendees heard best practices for conducting a post and district revitalization from Idaho Department Adjutant Abe Abrahamson.
– Have an American Legion service officer available to help answer veterans’ benefits questions or file a claim.
– Provide a free lunch. Feature this free lunch on the back of postcards that national staff mail before the revitalization that invite veterans to renew, join and learn more about The American Legion. “How many people in your community don’t know what you do?” Abrahamson asked the workshop participants. “How many veterans don’t know what you do? How many veterans don’t know who we are? Why is this? Because we don’t do a good job of showing everyone how great we are. Your post should add the free lunch (on the back of the postcards) and “Please bring your family and come down and see us.” Invite them to meet you. Give them a reason to come. Make it family-friendly.”
– Create packets of take-home materials for potential new members participating in the revitalization. Packages may include a post or department newsletter, membership application, and brochures on American Legion programs.
– Go online to 411.com if there is no phone number on the membership list provided during revitalization. A phone number will often appear after you enter a name and home address.
– Identify a phone number to leave for members to call if a voicemail needs to be left.
– Make a list of unreachable headquarters post members to call before each post meeting.
– Collect as much information as possible when filling out the Member Data Form to transfer a member of headquarters to a post office – email address, service branch, home address, etc.
– Engage transferred members – send out a post newsletter, have the post commander make a welcome call, and invite the member to the post for a meeting or dinner. “Your job from the day they move in is to build value at your position,” Abrahamson said. “Because if you haven’t built value in those months (before the renewal notice comes), they won’t renew.”
– Conduct an initiation ceremony with transferred members. “Just because they are members of the DMS, you can bring them into office and have an initiation ceremony. I believe this is important,” Abrahamson said because as they stand before postal leadership and members with their right hands raised, “what are they doing? They are making a commitment to your organization. They are committing to your post.”
– Recognize all the volunteers who helped with the revitalization effort. Abrahamson recommends presenting certificates of recognition during a department convention or mid-winter conference. “Know your people before people. It doesn’t do you any good to send a certificate to someone’s house.”
Abrahamson echoed past National Commander Marty Conatser’s remarks to Membership Workshop attendees that membership is like a sales job. “To do your sales job, you have to know what you’re selling,” Abrahamson said. “You don’t show up at a car dealership and say, ‘Hey, tell me about this car,’ and the salesman says, ‘Yeah, it has four wheels.’ love it and buy it. Legion is no different. You can explain everything to them that’s great, but if you don’t know the information, how can you sell it? Build the value.”
This value at The American Legion is the reason to join, said Membership and Post Activities Committee Chairman Jay Bowen. “The reason why you joined, the reason why you remain a member of the American Legion, is probably different than why I am doing it. But that’s okay. I see value in the American Legion. You definitely see the value in the American Legion. We have to make our veterans, our legionnaires, our members believe and understand that there is value in their membership. And we have to keep pushing it.”
MEMBERSHIP ADVICE
– The Arizona Department’s director of membership, Steven Sperl, has a QR code on the back of his American Legion business card that leads potential members to the department’s online membership application, where veterans can sign up and pay the dues. Sperl also places the QR code on every membership article he writes, which is featured on the Arizona Department’s website, Facebook page and Twitter account. “We have to embrace it and we have to use it,” he shared with Membership Workshop attendees during his presentation on membership recruitment.
– Utah Department Commander Doug Case’s business card has his Post 11 address, monthly meeting day and time, American Legion national website and website information to access military records/DD-214. “I give these to every veteran I see,” Case said during the membership recruitment session.
– Whenever a district commander in Illinois visited a post in his district, he would arrive an hour early to knock on the doors of two expired members from the respective post. Conatser said 19 of the posts in the county achieved 100% membership. “It’s easy on the phone, it’s easy on a letter, it’s not so easy when you’re standing on your front porch to say no (to join or renew),” Conatser said.
