[Lnc-business] student memberships for $10?

Daniel Wiener wiener at alum.mit.edu
Fri Dec 5 19:12:06 EST 2014


As a variant on what Alicia suggested, if Wes wants to offer some kind of
student membership, we could offer students an official Sustaining
Membership for $10 instead of $25 (and they also get one or more
promotional items), but with some LP donor(s) agreeing to pick up the
remaining $15 tab.  Offer this for the first 50 or 100 Special Student
Memberships ("Hurry! Limited time only!) and see how much interest it
attracts.  If it gets a lot of interest, we can probably find donors
willing to continue the promotion, and we then announce that we're
extending the offer.  And if it fails to boost student memberships, that's
the end of it.  This would avoid the complication of creating a new
pseudo-membership category.

Dan Wiener

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Joshua beat me to one of my points, that college students can already join
> the LP for FREE.  They become a member.  They get added to our database,
> and we have their contact info.
>
> Many of us have at one time been poor college students.  We know what it
> was like.  But I have to disagree with the notion that $25 might as well be
> $5,000 to a college student.  If they have a car, they probably buy gas at
> $3-$4 a gallon.  If they take girls out on dinner-and-a-movie dates, they
> spend more than $25 on that.  Etc.
>
> The responses from the college students said they didn't want to part with
> ANY money, not that they could part with $10 but not $25.  One of the
> comments in that file was from someone who has finished college, has a
> wife, and is paying off student loans, but still wouldn't part with $25,
> and they wouldn't be eligible for the proposed student membership.
>
> Lots of times the lack of money is a convenient excuse to give when they
> feel a need to say something but don't really want to explain the real
> reason.
>
> If you want do so some sort of student promotion, there is an easier way
> than creating a new membership category and the necessary CRM changes that
> go with it.  Just have a promotional deal.  If you become a party member
> and send us a copy of your current student ID card, we'll send you a coupon
> to get a $10 shirt, or a $10 backpack, or whatever.  I wouldn't want to
> give promo items that cost us more than the $10 to purchase and ship), so
> that we'd be losing money for every student that joins, but if our costs
> are covered, wouldn't that accomplish what you're looking to do?
>
> -Alicia
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Joshua Katz <planning4liberty at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Well, I'm not sure what the take-away is.  Most said that they'd join
>> when they're making more money; they probably will.  If $25/yr is out of
>> range, would $10 be in range?  It doesn't sound like most would do that -
>> $15 spread over a year isn't really that much savings.  What about giving
>> college students free pledge newsletters, a bumper sticker, and, for $10, a
>> t-shirt?
>>
>> Like I said before, I don't know what difference membership actually
>> makes to college students, unless we want college students on the board.
>> Are many interested in running for LNC?  Do many million dollar
>> corporations have college students on their boards?  I suspect not, to
>> both.  We already have free memberships.  I certainly agree with offering
>> something for students, I'm just not sure a reduced price non-bylaws
>> sustaining membership is the best thing.
>>
>> Joshua A. Katz
>> Westbrook CT Planning Commission (L in R seat)
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:
>>
>>>  Drawstring backpacks for sure.
>>>
>>> Attached are comments from actual starving students who were asked to
>>> join. By actual, I mean not actual.
>>>
>>> Hopefully I deleted all their identifying info from this attached text
>>> file.
>>>
>>>
>>> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
>>> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
>>> *New address: 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314*
>>> (202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.org
>>> facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
>>> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>>>
>>>  On 12/5/2014 2:05 PM, Arvin Vohra wrote:
>>>
>>> How about the benefit being one of those drawstring backpack things (in
>>> white, not blue!!)? I mean, what better on-campus advertising could we ask
>>> for?
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>
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>


-- 
*"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we
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this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare
the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or
experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it
disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key
to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it
doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is.
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”*
-- Richard Feynman (https://tinyurl.com/lozjjps)
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