Springfield chamber membership drive comes up short

In years past, the chamber ramped up its quest for new members with weeklong telemarketing blitzes in the spring and fall, said Executive Vice President Brad Bodenhausen.

The new approach: a two-month campaign with a goal of 250 new members or $100,000 in membership-related revenue. The aggressive recruitment effort kicked off Aug. 1, with 26 corporate teams competing for cash prizes.

The campaign, highlighted by a weeklong blitz in mid-September, netted 92 new members and $35,727 in revenue, Bodenhausen said. Chamber officials are following up with another 80 to 100 potential members identified through the campaign, he added.

Bodenhausen said the campaign pushed the number of chamber members to 1,982.

For several years, the number of chamber members has hovered near 2,000. In 2003 and 2004, membership was above the 2,000 mark, but it dropped from 2,033 in 2004 to 1,956 last year under former membership director Jackie Barger.

Barger left the chamber at the end of September after 16 months, but neither he nor Bodenhausen would say whether Barger’s departure was connected to dwindling membership.

“The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce is a very successful chamber that is very well received by local businesses,” Barger said. “I found that to be the case month after month.”

The chamber board will evaluate the effectiveness of the membership campaign at its annual retreat Oct. 20–21, said Bodenhausen, who acknowledged the goal of 250 members was ambitious.

“You set a goal and you set a deadline and you push as hard as you can to reach that goal by the deadline,” he said. “You certainly can’t automatically double the results by extending the time frame.”

A team comprising five UMB Bank employees led the campaign with 12 new members, five of whom were recruited by bank President Ann Marie Baker.

Katie Schear, commercial relationship manager at Regions Bank, also landed five new members before the campaign officially ended Sept. 30. Schear said she recruited her chiropractor and downtown sports bar Big Whiskey’s, and she talked the owners of her favorite business lunch spot, Argentina Steakhouse, into renewing its membership.

“I went to anybody I thought could benefit from the (chamber’s) advertising package and the business-to-business connections,” she said.

Two individual team members – Kevin Gillogly at Citizens National Bank and Michele Vanater at The Signature Bank – tied for most new members with seven apiece. Among Gillogly’s recruits: contractors, a restaurant, a hobby shop and an insurance salesman.

Gillogly, Citizens National’s senior vice president, said he’s been a chamber member since 1984, when he was an employee at Commerce Bank and then as a self-employed financial consultant in the 1990s.

“The chamber has always been a great networking opportunity, and it’s easy to sell because it worked for me when I was self-employed,” Gillogly said. “Philosophically, everybody should be a member of the chamber if they want to support the community.”

Gillogly said he has routinely participated in the chamber’s membership drives and prefers this year’s format to cold-calling businesses.

Historically, Bodenhausen said, the chamber’s retention rate has held steady at 80 percent to 85 percent. Membership revenue accounts for about half of the chamber’s annual budget, and rates for new members depend on the size of the business, he said.

On the low end of the scale, a business with one to five employees pays an annual membership fee of $351. Larger companies or those recognized as “leadership investors” pay $1,500 a year, Bodenhausen said, adding that the chamber has signed up 82 leadership investors in the program’s first year.

2006 Membership Campaign

Team with most new recruits: UMB Bank, 12

Team members with most new recruits: Kevin Gillogly, Citizens National Bank senior vice president, and Michele Vanater, The Signature Bank vice president and commercial lending officer, tied with seven apiece