Member Engagement Innovativeness

We believe that the people we serve make our association great, so who better to brainstorm on ways to engage themselves? Our members are on the cutting edge of property management and know better than our staff how we can best support them in their career development.

Prior to 2019, our Membership Committee worked on recruitment and membership drives. These efforts had limited success and committee participation was dwindling. So, the committee decided to shake things up. Instead of focusing on recruitment in 2019, they decided to focus on member engagement.

Getting the ball rolling at our Education Conference, the committee manned a member engagement booth. They dressed the part in tiaras and sashes to grab attention. We handed out, “I’m engaged” bracelets and ring pop candies. At the booth, they collected members’ information and had them follow a social media channel or give feedback to be entered to win prizes. People ate it up!

After that, we rolled out the Engagement Roadshow and started bringing all things WMFHA to team meetings. It was the first time we had made a conscious effort to meet our members where they were, rather than expecting them to always come to us for information. We themed the presentation around the play on engagement and continued to hand out the bracelets and ring pops. Keeping the format very interactive, we called on people at the meetings to share their experiences. A team of one property manager, one industry supplier, and a WMFHA staff member presented at these meetings. That way, the attendees got to hear from one of their peers, one of their service providers, and WMFHA itself about their benefits.

Another innovative tactic that was shared with the membership and at these meetings was the WMFHA “app.” We created a video tutorial on how to save a WMFHA website icon onto your phone home screen and a contest to go along with it. “There’s an app for that” got members excited about the sophistication and kept the association right at their fingertips.

Member Mondays is the first time we’ve had a successful orientation program. It is thanks to the guidance of our Membership Committee for proposing a virtual orientation that makes it a hit. Again, we are meeting our members where they are at and making it easier for them to be engaged.

Finally, our WMFHA Wednesdays are extremely innovative. Videos are a great way to get information to people in a fun format. We try to make each video informative and sometimes even silly to keep people interested and learning at the same time.