Finding the right members for your IPC

© Can Stock Photo / ajt

In “Basic ideas for recruiting members to your IPC,” I mentioned some ideas about finding and recruiting members, but didn’t explore the core of the matter, defining the qualities you’re looking for in potential members.

Open vs Closed Groups

If you're familiar with Meetup.com or some Facebook groups, you'll notice that you can either join immediately, or there is a small screening process before you can join. This is the elementary difference between open and closed groups. Open groups allow anyone to join, and closed groups makes an allowance for an organizer or moderator to ask the potential members questions before allowing them in.  Even with such a basic gateway for membership, you need some basic criteria to make a judgement. In one of the Facebook groups I moderate, we look to see if folks are 'real,' or they’re someone using Facebook to spam messages into our group. We look for things like locality, some posting history, or any other hook that tells us that this person is real. These are simple criteria put in place to mitigate an issue.

An IPC is a closed type of group. It goes much further in screening potential members than what I described above. An argument can be made that the clear majority of Meetup and Facebook groups are open, even if they screen potential members. This is to say the default screening processes are very limited and not thorough. To screen thoroughly, you need a well-developed concept of what you expect out of your membership.

Who is the ideal member for your IPC?

The first task you have in considering your membership is a checklist of broad traits folks need to have to get anything out of your IPC. The most important trait that should be on the top of the list is interest in IPC’s focus! From this point, take care to be reasonable about your expectations. You want to design your checklist in such a way as to identify folks who will be interested in the subject, be active with the group, and will get along with other members.  At the same time, you’re not looking for clones. What are the absolute requirements for joining the IPC? What are desirable traits?

Write a small paragraph about who you’re looking for as far as a member. An example for a Philatelist (stamp collector/historian) IPC might look like this:

“A member of the Atlantic Philatelist Club would be a stamp collector or somebody who has performed some work relating to philately, be it books, magazine or blog articles, or fine photography. Members must be able to attend at least half of the club’s meetings or functions, and be willing to share their knowledge of stamps with other club members.”

Pull out your membership criteria from the description. The starting checklist for a stamp collector’s 

IPC might look like this:

• Has at least one curated collection of stamps, properly stored. (Requirement)
• Can commit to attending six monthly meetings a year. (Requirement)
• Must be 21 years of age or older (Requirement)
• Can host at least one monthly meeting. (Desirable)
• Has a membership to a national philatelist society. (Desirable)
• Is willing to design and teach at least one workshop a year. (Desirable)

You can go deeper, but I would suggest not going more than ten criteria. Even then, if they conform to the required criteria, how many of the desired criteria do they need to hit to be considered for membership?  You should consider the goals of the IPC.

Don't expect perfection

Once you develop your checklist, you need to understand that very few people are going to meet every criterion you’ve established. However, you need to decide how many of the criteria is acceptable for membership, or what combination is acceptable. Of course, the requirements are the definite entry points, but you need to decide how many desirable criteria they need to adhere to be acceptable for membership. Do not expect anyone to be the ‘perfect fit.’ Look at this a goal to aspire to, rather than an absolute.

Live up to your own ideals

In creating membership criterion, you are required to live up to the standards that you’ve established. If you do not live up to the membership criteria you’ve established, both you and the IPC will lose credibility. Although you’re putting in the work – and good work it is – at the core of it, you’re another member. So be realistic with other folks.