Keeping Your Chapter Members Engaged

Have you thought that your chapter members are not always as engaged as you would like them to be? Well, there are some easy ways to fix that problem. Ask yourself this question first: “Were they engaged in the chapter before?” If the answer to that question is Yes, then you need to figure out the reason for this. 

A few causes of less engagement could be because of: 

• Boring activities

  • Do you do the same activities over and over again?

  • Are the activities fun?

• Chapter stress

  • Is your chapter a fun thing to be involved in?

  • Make sure it doesn’t feel like another class, but something your members want to go to

• Make sure members are comfortable

  • Try to make all your members comfortable with each other

  • Do team building exercises or icebreakers

Make sure your members are having fun, are comfortable, and are not stressed. These three main points may not seem that big, but they can affect your chapter in a larger way than you would think. 

Are you starting a new chapter, or are none of the things in the previous section related to your chapter? Well, let me tell you firsthand that getting the engagement from your members can be difficult sometimes. Once you do get that engagement from your members that you want, it will be amazing. 

Things you can do to increase engagement in your chapter: 

• Ask your members what they want to accomplish this year with your chapter

  • Try to make the things they want to accomplish happen throughout the year. If it is something they want they will be more committed to do other tasks to help. 

  • Give every member a role or responsibility

    • If everyone has a role or something they are in charge of then it will make things easier for you as a chapter to do things. The easier things are, the more people will want to help more or do more stuff. 

    • If you do campaigns ask your members what campaign they would like to be involved in. If you put them in something they are interested in or wanted to be in they will be more inclined to help with the campaign.

• Find fun activities to do 

  • I know personally that when you do fun activities people tend to be more involved in things after words. This doesn’t mean everything you do has to be super fun. 

  • For example: if the month prior was busy for your chapter then have a fun activity planned for the end of the month. 

• Meetings and Schedules

  • Your chapter should try to have at least one meeting a month to plan out what you need to get done in the next month. 

  • When everything is planned out ahead of time it makes it easier for people to be involved in whatever you are doing. 

Keeping your members engaged and involved in your chapter isn’t always easy, but it is a group effort! Make sure everyone is part of the solution and helps to keep things moving forward, on target, and reaching your chapter’s goals. 

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To learn more about chapter engagement, check out the SADD University courses at sadd.org/courses