ACDA Membership on the Rise

For the third straight quarter, membership in the American Choral Directors Association grew at a rate of 3%, representing the addition of 500 new members to ACDA over 2008 membership levels. This trend breaks a 5 year cycle of membership decline that is indeed dramatic, particularly in the economic climate of 2009.

According to ACDA Membership coordinator, Leane DeFrancis, analysis of the figures demonstrates areas of membership witnessing the strongest increase are in “Active” and “Student” categories. Categories of membership remaining relatively stable are “Industry”, “Institution”, “International”, and “Library” areas.

DeFrancis points to three areas of concentration that she believes account for the dramatic turnaround for ACDA: 1) Online registration and renewal; 2) Proactive membership efforts on the part of states and divisions; and 3) Added Membership Benefits including Member-Only Benefits provided through ACDA’s new website and other national initiatives.

Mark Smith, ACDA’s Division Accountant, has charted the course of membership since establishing reliable comparables in the summer of 2008. Smith’s analysis makes it clear that the challenge for ACDA has not so much been in attracting and registering new members as it has been renewing members on an annual basis. The membership issue for ACDA has been to stop attrition, which the new figures and analysis demonstrate is taking place. According to Smith, most of ACDA’s membership renewal occurs over a three-month period with members either renewing the month before, during, or after their anniversary month of expiration.

As the data has collected, ACDA Executive Director Tim Sharp began his own informal fact-finding to help annotate what the reports were revealing. Each week throughout the fall of 2009 Sharp took a list of expired members and called those directors to gather information. In the membership phone conversation, three questions were posed to expired members: 1) If the person intended to renew their ACDA membership?, 2) If not, was there anything ACDA could do to improve, or was there a benefit ACDA could add?, and finally, 3) If ACDA made that suggested change or added that suggested benefit, would membership renewal be likely? Sharp discovered, however, that most people had either forgotten or delayed their effort to renew membership and intended to do so.

While a comprehensive membership survey is in the planning stages, early indications are that ease of membership registration and renewal coupled with added, relevant membership benefits remain the key to ACDA’s membership growth as well as decreased attrition. New ACDA membership benefits such as Members-Only website content, new resources such as the online newsletter ChorTeach focusing on practical choral issues, online availability of the latest Choral Journal publication as well as all past issues, online voting and conference registration, a membership service culture in the national office, invigorated and relevant conference programming, and visionary and transparent Leadership Board administration all form part of the new ACDA.

Added to these membership benefits are initiatives that are in various stages of development. These new benefits reflect ACDA’s commitment to world choral opportunities, technology, children’s choir efforts, and research and publication efforts. These benefits will include resources being developed by ACDA’s Research and Publications Committee and Technology Committee such as ACDA’s new Digital Publishing House that will include ChoralPedia; a searchable Index for Choral Journal, ChorTeach, and the ACDA National Archives; choral radio broadcast through ACDA’s website; and added pedagogical resources found in ACDA’s various Repertoire and Standards website pages. New social networking resources are in development by ACDA and will add to the use of current online Forums, ChoralNet, Facebook, Twitter, and other developing networks. National, Division, and State conference steering committees are collaborating with other professional associations to bring new relevance and exciting programming to ACDA’s conference structure.

All of these enhancements are being undertaken to meet the needs of choral conductors seeking improvement and excellence in their art as ACDA continues to provide relevant tools for choral conductors.