Retention Strategies

 

Retention Strategies

Hey everyone!

We hope that your Best Buddies chapter has been progressing well throughout these past few months. Now that many school chapters have been active for a little while and matches have been made, one area that leaders often focus on is retaining their buddies and members throughout the school year. While many members indicate their commitment to Best Buddies at the beginning of the year, sometimes life can get overwhelming and members may take a step back from their chapter. Our goal in this blog is to provide strategies that can both encourage members to stay involved while also allowing room for freedom and flexibility.

Key Strategies:

1. Create a form of group communication, such as GroupMe, Remind, an email list, or even social media such as Instagram. Utilizing these platforms will help significantly with keeping your chapter schedule organized and reminding members about upcoming events.
2. Continue to advertise your events through word-of-mouth. Whether this is encouraging your friends to join as associate members or checking in on peer buddies, word of mouth is one of the most efficient ways to retain chapter members.
3. Check in on buddy matches/families. If possible, try to have each buddy group meet outside of chapter events once a month so that their friendship and involvement continues to grow!
4. Highlight your members to ensure that everyone in your chapter feels included and appreciated. This can be anything from making a social media feature post to writing letters to your buddies and members that go above and beyond!
5. Encourage direct input from chapter members and staff advisors. Since Best Buddies allows for so many different forms of in-school and out-of-school events, reach out to your peers about potential ideas that would be engaging for buddy groups.
6. While scheduling frequent events is a great way to expand your club, also allow for some room between meetings so that chapter members avoid getting overwhelmed. Remember that we are all in this together and providing some space can allow members some flexibility that would otherwise be difficult to manage with overly constant meetings.

Feel free to leave a comment on some retention strategies your chapter has implemented!

In friendship,

Nathan