Alternative Membership Models: What Has and Hasn't Worked

• Part 1 with Chris Leister: Monthly Membership Dues (“Subscriptions”)- Pros, Cons, and Can It Work for You?

One year ago, CMA and its Component Societies began a pilot project to test if a monthly membership subscription might work for our members. One year later, we have almost 400 members making monthly payments, with annual retention over 95%, and serving members who can’t afford to make a large up-front annual payment. Learn the pros and cons of a monthly membership option to see if this might benefit your members.

Educational Objectives and/or Takeaways:

• • Know the benefits and potential pitfalls of a monthly membership option
  • Understand the basic legal requirements for a monthly membership subscription
  • Consider if this might be a good option to offer your members

• Part 2 with Susan G. D’ Antoni: Membership Model Innovation? Who’da Thunk It?!  

Membership organizations are often challenged to develop new membership models because of bylaws constraints, tradition, culture, and/or a lack of creativity or initiative. If your active membership isn’t growing, and there are entire segments of your physician community who aren’t joining, you can’t keep doing what you’ve always done and expected different results. Innovation is key. This presentation will focus on the planning and approval processes for model innovation, key factors in implementation strategy, progress to date, and plans for evaluating success.

Educational Objectives and/or Takeaways:

• • Identify why membership model innovation is important in medical associations
  • Gain an understanding of the planning and approval process required to innovate related to model development and governance
  • Identify the key factors in implementation, monitoring progress and evaluating model success

• Part 3 with Heather Wilson: FutureMed (Student and Involvement) and Frontline

FutureMed is a program that offers medical students and residents free membership.

• • Specifically for residents, we partner with specialties to promote joint, free membership
  • We have a joint paper application and a joint online application

Frontline recognizes group practices that support PAMED with 100% physician membership – typically nearly 600 (ranging in size from 3 – 300)

• • Receive a plaque identifying them as a 100% membership group – we see these on many practice’s walls
  • Frontline exclusive call – once/month 30-minute gotowebinar that covers the “hot” topics PAMED is involved with
  • Membership Office works to visit frontline practices to make sure they know what is available to them, thank them