Aug
28
Luke Akehurst reports the results of the elections help by Compass (direction for the democratic left). He suggests that the organisation is not in good health if judged by the participation of its members.
I’m loathed to criticise Compass because past history suggests it results in personal attacks from its officers. However, I think it’s an important debate to be had. The internet has unleashed a wave of participation and, in some instances, channelled that participation into meaningful, lasting activism. After years of presuming that membership organisations were dying, the web suggested they could be rescued. So what can we learn from Compass about how organisations can engage with people to affect change?
The election results reveal that 20 people stood for its management committee and 23 for its youth committee. In total, 237 people voted – or just 6% of the membership. That’s slightly less than a trade union general secretary election but roughly similar to Labour’s NEC elections (as far as I can remember). The winning totals ranged from 90 first choice preferences down to just 5. The election victors were largely people with personal profiles, separate to their involvement in Compass.
However, it’s a more complicated picture than that. Compass has 25,000 supporters and over 4000 members. More than 900 activists have signed its statement calling for a high pay commission. And thousands of people a year have signed petitions, statements and attend Compass debates and events. So it’s not that Compass isn’t successful at engaging with people.
The finances of Compass don’t appear to be publicly available. But assuming that all members pay the full rate (£30 a year), plus a bit for organisational membership, Compass raises about £150,000 a year from its members. Assuming that all events break even, they must earn something around £10,000 a year in ticket sales. So the activism that they encourage isn’t just limited to reactionary things – or armchair (or computer screen) activism.
It’s certainly brave that Compass have a level of membership democracy. Some of those who run older membership organisations would rather not. One senior trade unionist used to tell me that if she were to start a new trade union, she would make sure there wasn’t any internal democracy. It’s also in keeping with their political ideals. But it’s an expensive exercise to run internal elections. Indeed, one of the barriers to primaries in parliamentary candidate selection is the cost of organising them for constituency parties.
So why isn’t Compass able to engage members more deeply? One reason might be that there aren’t significant benefits to being a member. The website says that you get invited to events, get monthly emails, get to debate on their website, campaign on issues – as well as taking part in its democratic structures. As a non member of Compass who currently gets invited to more events than I can attend, receives regular emails (including a ballot paper) can comment on the website and join in their campaigns – the benefits to membership appear marginal.
One other possibility is that engagement in the management of the organisation doesn’t mean very much. As we learned in the debate about the ‘How to Live in the 21st century‘ initiative, many of Compass’ campaigns emerge from current affairs rather than member-led initiatives. That’s almost certainly the best way to run a political campaign – but lacks the extra layer of grassroots authenticity.
Some of this is inherent in Compass’ origins. It was formed out of a statement drafted by a range of thought leaders in the Labour party before becoming a formal organisation by Neal Lawson – who always tops the ballot of internal elections. Without Lawson’s drive, vision and inspiration, it’s impossible to see how Compass could succeed. But it also makes it hard to imagine members changing the organisation’s direction.
But if Compass is not able to make membership more meaningful – or re-imagine the role of members – it may find an important source of income reducing.
So what could Compass do to make membership more rewarding? Here are four modest proposals, in the spirit of promoting debate about the challenge of turning supporters and activists into members.
- Enable deeper networking on the site between members so that people can increase their own political profile through membership – and keep it closed to non-members
- Host private debates with senior ministers / political figures which are invitation-only and make it clear to supporters that they can only attend (or watch online) if they join
- Present members with a shortlist of possible campaigns and engage them in the process of prioritising them, and deciding on campaign tactics
- Identify more ways to advertise the impact members have made on the organisation’s campaigns. For example, advertising which lists their name in recognition of their contribution to changing a government policy
Related posts:
- Compass: old ideas for new times
- Activists to members to activists
- 10 new members of the Bloggers Circle
An interesting analysis – and fair in noting there is an energy and activism. It is fairly one-way, but it is actually quite difficult for small organisations not to be. The formal democratic structure does mean that the AGM does debate ‘platform’ proposals and vote on them, though this would be a Compass activist group of a couple of hundred of the most committed.
But I think Compass’ turnout figure may be artificially low as a % of their real membership, because the 4000 members may be an artificially high claim, pitched there as part of a sense that the membership number is part of their legitimacy.
Compass make it very easy to join (and I think quite difficult to leave): for example, they charge a prohibitively high “non-member” ticket price for their annual conference, which is deliberately more than a “ticket plus membership” price. This is, I think, their main recruitment tool. So the membership is “decided to join” plus “attended the conference”. My impression is that they count a good many lapsed members or once-members in the 4000.
For example, your receiving the ballot paper as well as the emails suggests to me that you are in the 4000 members, though you believe yourself not to be a member. Perhaps you should ask them that to check this hypothesis. (I don’t know if you have brought a ticket for one of their conferences). Otherwise it might be a data management issue, but I doubt they are deliberately sending ballot papers to people they don’t think are members.
It seems very reasonable to ask if they will publish their finances, including the number of currently paid-up members and income received. I don’t see why they would want to resist that, given the emphasis on democracy and transparency throughout their work, and the commitment to the democratic ethos of the organisation. So perhaps they do make this available on request. I have never asked them for it.
Perhaps the supporter figure (which I assume means everybody who has participated in anything, or ended up getting emails, and I suspect is also an estimate).
Apart from the issues about numbers, on the whole, it is sensible for them to have had low barriers to entry and participation. One risk of seeking to give membership added value is that it could raise barriers to entry and participation – I think they are doing this for some prestige activities: I was told they are insisting that attendees to their Cruddas lecture either join or in the case of ‘lapsed’ once members that they pay to renew.
Thanks for your insight Eric. Not being within the organisation, I can only speak as I find. So I’m guessing that the reason they encourage people to join is because – particularly if they pay via direct debit – they can keep their financial contributions coming year after year – and the money raised from membership is probably enough to cover the main overheads (staff, office etc).
Making it easy to join is sensible – but if you make it too easy to join then members do not value their membership so come subs renewal time, easily lapse.
So what I’m suggesting (even if the proposals weren’t that innovative) is that it’s currently really easy to get involved with Compass which is a good thing, supports their objectives and gives them political credibility. But if it were slightly more meaningful to become a member then they might have more active members, contributing more making the management of them more worthwhile.
In the initial stage this may lead to fewer members contributing more – but over a period of time it should lead to more members contributing more (both in terms of activism and money).