[Lnc-business] ISLC Conference - free memberships - were they worth giving out?

[Scott L.]

>From page 3 of the June 2015 issue of LP News, in an article about the
International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, DC in Feb.
2015:

 

 

"In all, 317 attendees took advantage of a promotion to join the LP for one
year for free.many thanks to everyone who donated to pay for this event."

 

 

I assume this means that these attendees were given free sustaining
memberships for one year, and that all of them signed the membership
certification.

 

If it is true that these memberships are being 100% subsidized by donors who
specifically donated for this purpose, and there is no way that these donors
would have given money to the General Fund or to any other LP Project in
2015, then I suppose these members can be considered to have cost the LP
"nothing."

 

However, if those donors would have given to some other LP Project, or if
one of my other assumptions above is wrong, then these members came at a
cost to the LP.

 

 

My question is - will LPHQ staff track these members to see how many of them
are still members in December 2016?  If their renewal rate is much lower
than our average first-year renewal rate, then I would hope that staff would
carefully review the economics of giving out "free memberships" before they
attempt this project again.

 

OTOH, if the renewal rate of these students is comparable to our usual
first-year renewal rate, then I would assume the economics of these types of
giveaways yield a positive ROI for the LP, and in that case I hope that
staff can raise the money to repeat this project in other venues.

 

  Scott Lieberman

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20150619/f94ca3b3/attachment-0001.html>