Home  Membership Business Plan

Handbook

Membership Business Plan
FY 2002-2005

1.0 Overview
1.1 By 2005, YALSA's membership will stand at 4000. Only by having a membership base of this number can the division hope to carry out the programs it believes are necessary "to advocate, promote and strengthen service to young adults (ages 12-18) as part of the continuum of total library services."

1.2 YALSA will only be able to accomplish its goal of increased membership and member satisfaction if it decides early in the process what it specifically hopes to accomplish in its campaign. This definition requires the full attention of the YALSA Board and must be clearly stated in the division's Strategic Plan (in .pdf).

1.3 The number of young adult specialists is finite and not likely to increase substantially in the next three years, however a larger number of librarians in school and public libraries who serve young adults will be necessary because of the growing number of young adults in the population. Thus, YALSA will need to look outside of its current membership market to increase its numbers. If increasing membership is indeed a major part of YALSA's Strategic Plan (in .pdf) the Board may wish to consider appoint a Membership Task Force to design and implement a plan.

2.0 Products, Services and Member Benefits
2.1 YALSA is about a community of professionals working together to support our needs and the needs of the patrons we serve. Continuing education supports both the immediate training needs of our membership and prepares us for the future of library service to young adults. The YALSA Office does an outstanding job of not only offering timely and helpful information, but also acting as a gateway to other ALA services.

2.2 Information is made available to current and potential YALSA members through the division's profession journal, Young Adult Library Services (YALS), a good range of non-serial publications and the YALSA web sites including YALSA, Teen Read Week, and YALS. YALSA is the first division to offer a Members Only web site. The YALSA Serving the Underserved cadre of 68 trainers are recognized experts in this field and provide yet another outlet to promote the value of professional connections in effective service to teenagers.

Most YALSA members are passionate about books and reading. YALSA offers many opportunities to serve on selection committees. The products of these committees--reading lists--are almost universally utilized in school and public libraries. Opportunities to see and hear authors who write for the young adult market are available through celebrations in conjunction with two major awards-the Margaret A. Edwards Award and the Michael L. Printz Award. Teen Read Week activities and products provide a means to promote teen reading and adolescent literacy. The Great Book Giveaway offers members in underfunded libraries an opportunity to provide new and timely books to its patrons. Individual grants offer incentives for conference attendance and collection development.

2.3 The most prohibitive factor to joining YALSA is the cost. The cost of joining both ALSC and YALSA is $85 currently, which is substantial and deters many youth services librarians because of the choice they have to make if they can join only one. YALSA members may fear to become involved in committee work if they know that their employers would not financially support conference attendance. YALSA already utilizes it web sites, its discussion lists, "virtual" committee membership, and its "For Members Only" services in order to increase involvement of the membership and recruit new members.

2.4 Sponsoring online teleconferencing, distance learning through the web site, or a training video "rental" service through the YALSA office would be desirable services to add.

2.5 Other ALA units can contribute to membership development both directly and indirectly. Direct activities include appealing to potential YALSA members in membership campaigns. Indirect activity includes making services of other units visible and valuable to both current and potential YALSA members. YALSA needs to work with both ALA and other divisions to promote the benefits of professional organization membership to the employers who can make the choice to support these activities both financially and developmentally.

3.0 Market Analysis
3.1 Observation would suggest that our members are public librarians serving young adults, youth services librarians, library school instructors, school librarians, friends, trustees, and others who are youth advocates.

3.2 The environmental scan that is a part of the YALSA Strategic Plan presents a good analysis of the market and its potential.

3.3 One informal technique which could be used by the Division and Membership Promotion Committee would be to use the YALSA booth at annual conferences to discover where the members who attend our conference and visit our booth come from by allowing booth visitors to pinpoint their home libraries on a map.

3.4 YALSA has no direct competitor that provides the products and services it does. Associations that focus on books, reading and literature such as the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English would come closest to appealing to current and potential YALSA members. YALSA does not believe that state and regional library associations are our competitors, but instead are among our greatest partners in increasing membership. YALSA might wish to connect with young adult interests within these organizations in order to promote further the benefits of YALSA membership. Our office can, in turn, serve as a resource to sate and regional associations wishing to expand their young adult service presence.

4.0 Strategy and Implementation Summary
4.1 YALSA is the biggest game in town and the only one working in the interests of librarians serving young adults on this scale. YALSA offers its members services (awards, grants, resource lists, and a community for like-minded professionals) that no one else can match nationally.

4.2 YALSA must also focus recruitment outside the "YA Librarian" job title, since in many libraries and schools, those serving teens may not have that job title. The FY2002 budget includes funds for a professional marketing plan that will enable the division to target its membership recruitment efforts more effectively.

4.3 About 40% of YALSA members are secondary school librarians. There are many more who are potential members; directors of public libraries are another untouched pool of potential members. YALSA has several active members who are in publishing. More would be welcome. Many of the librarians who report their Teen Read Week activities are neither ALA nor YALSA members. The good feeling they get from celebrating Teen Read Week may be their first experience with a national professional organization. They should be actively recruited.

4.4 SUS trainers will actively seek new YALSA members at each training session they give. The Board will reinstate it plan to ask for a commitment from each of its officers and committee chairs to make a recruitment visit to at least one ALA or NCATE approved graduate school during their term of office.

4.5 YALSA will need to evaluate its pre-existing partnerships and mine them for membership ideas. Who has YALSA worked with in the past? Which partnerships do we value most highly? If the Board identifies a group with whom we have not partnered that may be a valuable cohort in our plan, they may wish to extend a partnership agreement.

4.6 Success can only be measured by clearly defining goals from the beginning and then evaluating whether those goals were met. One goal might be to increase membership to a level that the organization becomes self-sustaining.

5.0 Management Summary
5.1 Continuity and clearly defined expectations best support membership development within committees, task forces, and staff positions. Committee members are volunteers who are contributing their valuable time to the organization. If they do not feel secure in the knowledge of what their roles are and what is expected of them, they will be less likely to successfully accomplish the goals of the organization and continue in committee work.

5.2 Two keys to achieving the goals of the organization are communication and conversation -- communication from the Board, promotion of YALSA services, and information from the YALSA office, and conversation between committee members, between the Board and the committees (through committee liaisons), and between other professionals in the field.

6.0 Financial Plan
6.1 In FY2000, YALSA spent approximately $6000 on membership recruitment and retention. This figure includes support for the YALSA Booth at annual conference, membership brochures, targeted mailings, photographs of YALSA events, YALSA's part of the Joint Youth Division Membership Reception, and membership packets. The FY2001 budget allocates $7900 for these activities. The FY2002 budget increases that amount to $13,650 and includes funds for a marketing plan.

6.2 The larger and more ambitious the goal, the less adequate the current budget becomes. If the Board decides that a full-scale membership drive is the only way to accomplish its goals, such a decision necessitates thoughtful planning, a possible task force, more mailings, connecting with state and regional organizations that serve our members (and potential new members) and graduate schools that train librarians to serve young adults, and increased visibility. All of these activities require money, time, and great energy, resources that are limited in a small, subsidized division. The YALSA Board may wish to look at ALA's larger membership drive for inspiration, information, and assistance.

Plan data is based on a report from YALSA's Division and Membership Promotion Committee for the YALSA Board, January 13 and 14, 2001, and YALSA Board discussion during the ALA Midwinter Meeting.