[chapter-delegates] New Membership Level

[Carlos Vera]

Free Membership  Vs  Paid Membership

Free as in Freedom. No as in GRATIS.

It seems like does not matter what chapter representatives say here or in 
the list or our bylaws or our principles once decision have been made to 
stablish a NEW BUT FIRST membership class...

Even to pay ONE dollar is the begining of an discriminatory activities.

We are not negotiating the AMOUNT but the concept. It's a negotiation way to 
say please make me an offer.. you can offer even 1 cent and the negotiation 
begins then... soon or later you find yourself offering to pay USD 75 BUT 
the concept is MEMBERSHIP CAN NOT be a fee dependent issue.

Isoc Ecuador

Carlos Vera

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James M Galvin" <galvin at elistx.com>
To: <chapter-delegates at lists.isoc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: [chapter-delegates] New Membership Level


> I've been watching this discussion unfold today.  There are many valid 
> points of view and I do not want to discourage people from discussing 
> those views.  What I do want to do is add some context to the discussion 
> to explain how the new membership level came to be.  This note is long, 
> and I apologize for that, but I wanted to be complete.
>
> I accepted the position of VP of Chapters 3 years, just after the Board 
> had decided to restructure itself.  A component of the ISOC strategy that 
> emerged from that restructuring was to set aside temporarily paying 
> membership and instead create a new membership that was free.  One of the 
> responsibilities I had was to create a new membership program that 
> included both free membership and paying membership.
>
> The fact is ISOC members want a paying membership.  We know this from a 
> survey we took more than 2 years ago.  Perhaps some of you participated in 
> that survey, although the discussions would suggest that many of you 
> either did not participate or do not remember doing so.  We also surveyed 
> Chapters (through this list) on what they wanted from a membership system.
>
> The results from both of these surveys were used as input (among other 
> inputs) to create the RFP that was used to solicit for a membership 
> system.  I will point out only for completeness here that several open 
> source solutions were considered at that time.  None of them even came 
> close (order of magnitude difference at least) to what was offered by the 
> top 3 choices, from which we ultimately selected Go's Q system.
>
> The member survey mentioned above also served as input to developing a 
> membership program.
>
> Several people have commented that $75 is too much money.  We discussed 
> this issue at length for many hours.  There are several points worth 
> noting from those discussions.
>
> ISOC is not competing with its Chapters for members.  We will continue to 
> encourage people to create and join Chapters.  But for those that want to 
> contribute directly to ISOC, and there are people for whom this is 
> desired, we are offering an appropriate membership level.
>
> The $75 fee was derived from two principle sources.  First, a principle 
> reason the paying membership was tabled 3 years ago was because it was not 
> cost effective.  The problem was made worse by the fact that it was 
> impossible to come up with a few schedule that met the needs of everyone 
> everywhere.  ISOC had tried various methods of doing this over the years 
> and none were successful.
>
> The answer to the fee schedule problem was to use Chapters.  Chapters 
> really are the principal means by which members contribute to ISOC. 
> Chapters can set fee schedules (or not) according to their own needs and 
> what is possible in their community of interest (which is usually a 
> geographic region).  This matched well with the Board's restructuring 
> since Chapters could now elect up to 3 members of the Board directly.
>
> So, rather than trying to find a paying membership level that meets the 
> needs of everyone everywhere, we are promoting Chapters to do that. 
> Instead, we will focus on a membership level that we can provide, with 
> benefits based on what members have requested.  Of course, since we want 
> the program to be self-supporting, the second source of the $75 fee is 
> based on a budget of what we believe we can provide for 1,000 members, 
> which compared to other membership based organizations is a bargain. Note 
> that we are not projecting tens of thousands of members.  Those members 
> are for the Chapters to get.  We are just projecting a few thousand 
> members over the next several years.
>
> For those who want to be recognized by ISOC directly, not just through 
> their Chapter, we still have the donor program.  You can contribute any 
> amount of money to ISOC directly and you will be recognized for it.  The 
> donations levels are named Contributor, Supporter, Benefactor, and Patron. 
> Any USD dollar amount under $125 is a Contributor.  So, you can give 
> whatever you can and your name will be listed on the web site under 
> Contributor.
>
> Someone suggested that ISOC let the Chapters charge fees and then ISOC 
> should take a percentage.  We thought about that.  We considered it quite 
> seriously.  There are several concerns with that model.  First, some 
> Chapters do not charge membership fees and do not want to charge a fee. If 
> we do not require everyone to charge a fee than the disparity between 
> those who pay and those who do not will continue to exist.  Second, 
> suppose the Chapter charged the equivalent of $1 USD for membership. That 
> dollar amount might be entirely appropriate for the Chapter.  Do we really 
> want to take 5, 10, or 25 percent of that membership fee away from a 
> Chapter that probably needs the money more than we do?  Finally, other 
> organizations comparable to ISOC do not take money from their Chapters. 
> This does not seem like a good way to distinguish ourselves from them.
>
> And finally, the fact that ISOC Members (as compared to ISOC Associate 
> Members) will get to vote directly for a Trustee is an easy target for 
> discussion.  Many people are very passionate about this point, on both 
> sides.
>
> The new membership level was not created to support voting.  The fact that 
> voting is permitted is completely incidental.  It is a "pro forma" benefit 
> for all member organizations that take fees from their members.
>
> Keep in mind that ISOC Members (as compared to ISOC Associate Members) do 
> not get any more of a voice on the Board of Trustees than Chapters. 
> Chapters get to select 3 trustees and Members get to select 3 trustees. 
> And, Members are further constrained by the fact that there have to be at 
> least 1,000 of them with at least 500 of them actually paying.  (Note that 
> organizational members get complimentary memberships.)  We do have as a 
> goal to attract at least the 500 paying members needed during this first 
> year, but if we do not meet that goal then Members will not vote. In 
> contrast, Chapters always get to vote and members always get to vote 
> within their Chapter.
>
> I have tried to say something about all the questions that have been 
> raised so far.  If there are more questions I will say more, but we also 
> need to move forward with the decisions that have been made.  Many things 
> have taken quite a long time to come together, and they are finally doing 
> that.  We really do have many positive changes and benefits to bring to 
> you this year.  This new membership level is intended to be a positive 
> benefit change.  If it does not work out then we will certainly change it 
> but, like the membership models that have been tried in the past, we need 
> to try this one too.
>
> Jim
>
>
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