IEEE-USA President's Column

 

President's Column
July/August 2005

The Membership Imperative for IEEE-USA

The IEEE’s U.S. membership is IEEE-USA’s lifeblood; it is the purpose and reason we exist. The primary source of support for our programs is the assessment paid by U.S. members. At this time, the IEEE’s U.S. membership is in steady decline, with the loss of approximately one to two percent of higher-grade members in our Regions (1-6) each year.

Membership attrition can be attributed to many causes, and their effects may be cumulative. Our membership is aging, and we lose a substantial number of members each year as they leave the workforce and no longer need to sustain their careers. Student membership rates rise and fall with enrollments, but only about 31 percent of student members make the transition to higher-grade membership their first year out of college. After five years, that figure drops to about 13 percent. The price of membership rises with inflation, prompting individuals to make decisions about the value of their investment, especially in a highly competitive economy that has seen considerable displacements in the high-tech sector. Engineers in industry with access to their company’s IEL subscription do not need membership to access the IEEE technical information they need to remain current. Some analysts even emphasize sociological and economic factors — such as the time constraints on two-income families with children — as factors which limit free time for association membership and volunteer commitments.

Whatever the causes, the impacts on IEEE-USA cannot be ignored. Declining U.S. membership not only reduces our influence in Washington, it also creates a cycle where fewer and fewer members contribute financially to our operations, as well as those of corporate IEEE. With our member-service focus, member assessment subsidizes most of our products and services, which we provide to members for free or at a reduced price. As the U.S. assessment and other costs of IEEE membership increase to cover the shortfalls caused by inflation and declining membership, some individuals choose to discontinue as members, thus fueling the downward trend.

There are two ways to break the cycle. The first is to find a way to increase the U.S. higher-grade membership. This would enable us to spread our operating costs and thereby reduce the cost of membership. The second is to develop income sources other than dues and assessments that would reduce the burden on members.

With regard to increasing membership, IEEE-USA supports current efforts of the IEEE Membership Development Committee. The IEEE will launch a direct-mail recruiting campaign this fall that will reach out to non-IEEE members eligible for membership. A technical segment initiative is also in the research phase. The latter is designed to branch into new disciplines, such as IT in health care and multimedia. A recently completed telemarketing campaign restored IEEE membership to about 3,000 U.S. and Canadian members who had been in arrears, and was successful in restoring over 2,600 Society memberships.

IEEE-USA is also working to develop non-assessment revenue sources for services that we hope, over time, will reduce our reliance on assessment income. The key is to identify products and services that can be provided to our members at little or no cost as a member service, while generating sales among non-member consumers. A good example of this is the new IEEE-USA Salary Service. In exchange for participating in the annual IEEE-USA Salary Survey, U.S. members have free access to a salary calculator that can be used to do personal salary planning. At the same time, employers are offered paid subscriptions to the database and a set of analytical tools they can use to track salary trends and set their compensation models.

IEEE-USA’s great challenge is to show value for the assessment dollar collected, and I take this opportunity to share with you the value we provide. Currently, your dollars support four broad IEEE-USA program areas. IEEE-USA provides a voice in Washington on issues that affect our members and the profession. We engage our government relations capabilities on a variety of issues ranging from retirement security, protection of intellectual property, promotion of sound technology policies to enhance U.S. competitiveness, electricity reliability, and sustaining a strong domestic engineering workforce, to name a few. We lobby directly and through our grassroots; we place Fellows in Congress and the State Department; we help educate Congress about technical issues through congressional briefings; and we educate our membership on policy issues through speakers, workshops, articles, and the Eye on Washington e-mail update.

Besides government relations and technology policies, IEEE-USA provides career and member services aimed at enhancing non-technical skills and promoting professional opportunities. In addition to the new Salary Service, the IEEE-USA Employment Navigator allows IEEE members to connect with hiring employers, build and send effective resumes and link to other career resources. IEEE-USA’s Alliance of IEEE Consultants Networks and new entrepreneurial activities serve targeted member segments. IEEE-USA’s Employment and Career Services virtual community is the Institute’s largest, with nearly 2000 subscribers who use the network to share career-related advice and information.

IEEE-USA’s professional activities (PACE) support efforts by local IEEE sections, chapters, student branches, regions and technical divisions to inform members of the non-technical components of an engineering career. For example, IEEE-USA has co-sponsored 32 S-PACs (Student Professional Awareness Conferences) at colleges and universities across the United States so far this year.

IEEE-USA’s communications programs are designed to keep you informed of the products and services we offer, as well as keep you up to speed on issues affecting the profession. IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer is a primary communications vehicle, appearing quarterly in print, monthly as an online magazine and e-mail update, and four times a year as an advertorial in IEEE Spectrum. Our other communications focus is improving public awareness and appreciation of engineering, which we do through such programs as the annual EWeek celebration.

IEEE-USA understands the imperative to increase member value and control costs. The alternative is to see the IEEE’s U.S. membership continue to decline and watch our ability to provide valuable products and services to you, the U.S. member, diminish. We cannot let this happen.

You can view our strategic and operational goals online at www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/strategicplan/. And you can track our progress for the year to date at www.ieeeusa.org/about/yearinreview.asp. The IEEE-USA Web site also provides links to all applicable programs and services at www.ieeeusa.org.

In the final analysis, we need your help to succeed. There are two ways that you can make a difference. The first is to actively promote IEEE membership and participate in such membership development efforts as the “Member-Get-A-Member” program (www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/mgm.html). The second is to give us feedback on what IEEE-USA can do to better deliver programs and services that you value. Send us your thoughts and suggestions at feedback@ieeeusa.org.

Updated:  27 June 2008
Contact: Pender M. McCarter, p.mccarter@ieee.org