Reinforcing the effectiveness of a membership organisation
With charities facing various challenges in maintaining membership levels and managing professionalisation throughout the industry, I like to think that the Royal Air Forces Association serves as an example of best practice. Our charity has managed to not only maintain but increase membership levels over the past year. Let me first put this in the overall context of a general requirement for professionalism across the charity sector.
The charity sector continues to play an important role as both a support system for and champion of important causes across the country, and also as an "employer" of approximately 800,000 workers across the UK. According to the Labour Force Survey, voluntary sector workers equated to around 2.7% of all UK employees in 2012. Additionally, in 2012/13 there were approximately 160,045 voluntary organisations operating in the UK.
Significant concern
The sheer size of the industry (an indeed it is an industry) and its rapid expansion in recent years have sparked some significant concern around issues such as accountability, transparency, programme sustainability and fundraising practices. Increasingly, professionalisation is seen as the best way to address these concerns and guarantee that charities can deliver reliably and responsibly.
While regulators such as the Charities Commission are important when enforcing standards across the industry, charities largely rely on a suite of "best practice" guidelines rather than a set of concrete rules. A number of high profile scandals over the past year have arguably tarnished the image of charities, leading to the overhaul of the self-regulation model.
Membership organisations such as the Royal Air Forces Association find themselves in an interesting position when public opinion changes so drastically. By their very nature they are not only accountable to their supporters and beneficiaries, but they also have an inherent responsibility to reflect the views of their members, the very people who keep the organisation going.
Receiving no government contributions, the work of the RAF Association is completely funded by our members and through donations. It therefore falls on all employees, led by senior management, to connect with the existing membership base, to maintain and also increase membership numbers.
Recognition of dedication
The RAF Association exists in the recognition that RAF personnel and their immediate families dedicate their lives to their country, and to ensure that such a sacrifice does not result in suffering, poverty or loneliness.
With a membership of approximately 62,000, which includes serving RAF personnel, veterans and non-service individuals, and a worldwide branch network of over 500 volunteer welfare caseworkers, the association is able to make over 102,000 welfare visits and calls annually. Support is available to members of the 1.5 million strong RAF family and ranges from providing conversation and friendship to preparing and submitting application forms for financial assistance.
Working closely with other charities, we help secure over £1.8 million in grants each year for those in financial hardship. As the "voice" of the RAF family, we speak out on vital issues such as the importance of the Armed Forces Covenant and the arrangements for widows’ war pensions. We also run year-round activities, such as our new Befriending Service and Storybook Wings, which keep families connected when parents serve overseas, capitalising on the experience, expertise and passion of our members and employees to deliver the best support network for our members.
Identifying and addressing challenges
Over the past year, we have been dedicated to identifying and addressing the challenges that face the association. Ultimately, two overarching issues were recognised as priorities in safeguarding our long term development:
RAISING EXISTING AND POTENTIAL MEMBERS' AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE ASSOCIATION. In 2015 we supported around 14,000 members of the RAF family through our various welfare initiatives. While the Association benefits from having a generous and active membership base, much of the general public are not aware that we are, in fact, a membership organisation, similar to the Royal British Legion.
Having members helps us to identify vulnerable and isolated individuals in our local communities, and through our branch network we are able to reach out to those who need us. While individual donations provide the vast majority of funding for our various initiatives, members sit at the heart of the organisation and everything we do. We simply would not exist without them.
PROVIDING EXTENSIVE TRAINING TO VOLUNTEERS AND MEMBERS. The increased pressure to deliver services to a professional standard is not going to lessen in the near future. The majority of our welfare work is delivered by volunteers, who are mostly members, so we must ensure that they are properly equipped to deal with what are often sensitive issues.
Our caseworkers share our desire to deliver the best service to those in need. When dealing with cases of severe loneliness, social isolation or financial hardship, it is important that we are able to provide the same level of support and advice across our network. This consistency is another benefit of a structured training system.
By implementing a two-pronged approach, we have successfully managed to meet these challenges head-on. Despite external pressures, we have managed to grow our membership by over 600 members over the past year alone. By the end of 2015, all of our volunteer welfare caseworkers had been trained to a nationally recognised standard.
Training volunteers enables delivery
We believe that by training our volunteers in this way we will be able to deliver on our promise to beneficiaries. This allows us to continue to benefit from our exceptional mix of volunteers and permanent employees without compromising on the quality of our programmes. Such a comprehensive and far-reaching training scheme is an important first for the Armed Forces charity sector and we hope to see the standard rolled out across the sector over the next few years.
While the professionalisation of our team is key, attracting members and inviting people to join and support the RAF Association is equally important. We found that approximately 3,000-5,000 people were letting their association membership lapse every year. Such significant lapse rates ultimately negate any progress we might make with membership recruitment and we had to take urgent action to stem this outflow.
Late last year we attempted to contact lapsed members to find out more about why they had let their membership lapse. While 40% of those we contacted renewed their membership immediately, a further 40% needed our help for issues ranging from financial hardship to loneliness and isolation. We have alerted our welfare team to those who need support and I’m pleased to say this is already making an impact.
Based on the success of this activity, we will be trying to contact the 2,000 lapsed members from 2015 to see if they have any welfare needs or, if appropriate, to encourage them to renew their membership. To date 26% of those contacted have now renewed their membership and where a welfare need was identified, we are helping. This approach requires a lot of investment from the association, while being a time and labour intensive exercise, it reflects the core values and goals of the charity to support members of the RAF family when they are in need.
Next five years
Over the next five years, we will continue to contact lapsed members, addressing welfare needs where we find them, as well as undertaking additional awareness raising activities to grow our membership back to 100,000.We are on a path of growth and expansion as we hope to connect with more members of the RAF family and provide them with the help some of them desperately need.
From an operational perspective, our future will mean more investment in our capacity to deliver services and time to reach out to as many members of the RAF family as we can to encourage them to join the association. We will be building on our work to alleviate loneliness and isolation through our befriending service, reaching out to local communities.
With a family of 1.5 million we have our work cut out for us, but a large part of my role is identifying and contacting the entire RAF family. Through initiatives like befriending and our wider welfare work we are well on our way to achieving this.
Balancing different needs
As a membership organisation which provides welfare support, we have to carefully balance the needs of both groups, especially as some members may also be beneficiaries. To do my job effectively and for the association to deliver personalised solutions to pressing problems, we all, every employee and volunteer, must appreciate that we have a responsibility to continually listen to members and beneficiaries, and this must act as the driving force behind our activity.
