Esperanto-USA

As far as I know, the high point in the size of the E-USA membership in 1987 was due to the fact that the 100 year anniversary of Esperanto got some (small amount of) press in many newspapers in the U.S.

My experience tells me that those Esperantists who re-join year after year are people committed to the Esperanto movement. They are not very interested in calculating whether they get equal value for their membership dues - they are much more interested in doing what they can (in terms of money or time or effort) to spread the use of E-o in the U.S.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell in advance whether a person requesting information or a person buying a dictionary will turn out to be a committed member of the organization. As a result, we have to keep spreading the word about Esperanto, sending reminders to those who requested information, and expect that many people who join once will not re-join. This is all part of sifting the dross to find the few nuggets of gold.

I've been grappling with this issue personally for months. Part of me wants to re-up my membership, and part of me does not.

I love Esperanto. It's an oasis for me. I know I am among friends, or at the very least, samideanoj, when I am with other esperantists. It's a source of comfort and a rather large part of my self-identity.

However, Eo-USA is not. It should be: I certainly feel that my other affiliations are part of my identity. So why the difference?

Well, the answer is, I'm not getting anything out of it. The idea behind any organization is synergy. The output of the organization should be more than the sum of the input from the individual members, such that each person feels like they got more out of it than they put into it. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone I personally know feels like that.

Let's analyze this past year for a moment:
Membership:
$40
Benefits:
10% discount at the bookstore,
un-crippled access to the website,
Two of the six editions of the newsletter expected,
and the ability to vote in elections.

I cannot count the Kongresso. I'm convinced that it (or something like it with a different name) would happen regardless of Eo-USA's existence.

Now, the discount does seem like a big deal, until you realize that you must purchase $400 in merchandise to recoup the membership fee, each and every year.

A good friend of mine often says that the newsletter serves as the life-line to older members who do not use the internet. Those non-internet-using members are drowning then. Shame on us. Enough said.

Crippling the website for non-members is foolishness. For one thing, the same information is available elsewhere 99% of the time, and for another, it puts off potential members. Don't do this anymore, it only hurts Eo-USA and does not help. This is as crazy as a bank being unwilling to cash a check for a non-member. There's a check cashing store right down the street, and the bank is losing potential customers by letting them leave with a sour taste in their mouths. Let's not be that bank. That was last century's way of (not) doing business. We cannot afford it.

So we honestly did not provide anything worthwhile. No wonder membership is decreasing.

I didn't write all this to be surly. I just want to point out some very real problems that are causing membership to plummet. Each of these problems is easily addressable, and I encourage the Board to do so.

The condensed version of all this is: Supply and Demand. The supply (of esperanto news, relationships, etc.) is plentiful, and the demand (for what Eo-USA is currently offering) is not. Therefore, offer more and demand less.

Retposxtu min je Key ID: 0x54D1D809

A couple of comments . . .

The downward trend in membership is not unique to ELNA/E-USA. Libera Folio is reporting the same trend for UEA, and in fact the entire model of "membership organizations" is in decline socially. The same is true of the "club" model for social interaction. If you look at the membership of groups like the Optimists or the Elks, most of the members are older, and are people who have already been members for a while . . . how many 20- or 30-somethings do you know who are joining the local Elks Club? That's just not how people socialize today. They're more likely to stay home, surf the internet, IM their friends and family, watch DVDs from NetFlix, and go out in informal groups for fun or special events.

So the world itself presents a dilemma to entities like ELNA. How do we stay afloat and offer essential services that people want (presumably) with fewer and fewer members paying dues to support that? There are no easy answers to that question. A huge endowment would be great, but it's not likely to happen (and based on past history, it would probably be spent rather than conserved to support ongoing operating costs.) There are going to have to be new money-generating strategies for the future. That area is outside my expertise, but it's important for discussion. I think it would be much more fruitful to focus energy in that direction rather than figuring out how to "attract more members"--to speak frankly, I just think that isn't going to happen.

Second, remember that no individual Esperanto-speaker has any kind of obligation to do anything, simply because he or she knows, uses, or is interested in the language. We don't want to be scaring people off by saying first "Oh, come on, learn this cool language" and then saying, "By the way, now that you're a part of this group, you have to organize local meetings, propagandize, spread the word, wear our special T-shirt, etc." That certainly doesn't fit for me. I don't have an evangelical "spread the word" bone in my body, either for religion or for Esperanto (although I'm both religious and an almost life-long Esperanto-speaker).

People who know me know I have this strange part of my life, where I speak an unknown language on the phone and the internet, read mysterious books from other countries, and so forth. Some people laugh about that, other people respect it. Doesn't bother me one way or another. I don't have a mission to convince anyone to think or act the way I do.

I'd avoid saying to anyone "You should", "You need to", "You ought to", "It's your responsibility to", etc. Much better to say "I'm doing X" or "My plan is to do Y", or best of all "I already did Z, and here's what happened." Sometimes you can inspire by example; you can rarely inspire by preaching.

Esperanto has staying power. It emerged out of a felt human need, and it responds to something inherent in a large number of people in the world (even if that group is a comparatively small minority). The language itself has value and interest, and can hold its own. I would be happy for people who are already interested in Esperanto to actively and correctly learn the language, and then start using it for their own enjoyment . . . because after all, if we don't enjoy Esperanto we're missing the point. It's not a thing of life or death; it's an interesting language, community, culture, and social phenomenon that we choose to be involved with.

My $0.02 worth . . .

Lee

Let me add my heartfelt "Hear! Hear!" to your advice about answering initial queries about Esperanto _minimally_. I suspect our greatest mistake as "verduloj" is launching into "mini-lecture" given the slightest opportunity. In my experience hardly anyone can be _talked_ into changing their mind (or learning something new), but many, or at least some, people can be _listened_ into it. Let _them_ ask the questions; then respond as succinctly as possible. "Leave 'em wanting more!", as some showbiz impresario once said...

George Partlow
Yuma AZ/Douglas AK