The National Commander is resolute to have every department in The American Legion achieve 90% retention. Each department must submit weekly membership reports to their area National Vice Commanders. Those Vice Commanders are reviewing the membership reports and conducting weekly meetings with the Department leadership to determine what action is being taken. They will be focusing first, on posts with a membership percentage below 70%, and then, on posts with membership percentage below 80%. National is also focusing on the DMS/Post 1000 list and what is being done by each department to engage and invite those members to join a local post. Each department is required to submit written reports on progress in these areas every two weeks, with the first report due on February 24, 2021.
In order to complete these reports and improve upon our membership percentage, we need every Area Vice Commander, District Commander, post leadership, the membership team, the training team, and Department Staff to work together to determine the needs of our struggling posts, whether that is training, mentorship, guidance, help with compliance issues, replacement of officers, or, if needed, closing, and/or merging. The District Commanders are the single best source to work a course of action with the struggling posts in their districts.
At the DEC in November, a District Status Report was approved for enactment. With the help of your respective Area Membership Team leader along with a post representative, the Department is asking each District Commander to identify struggling posts in their districts and enter into a Course of Action to resolve those issues. Each Course of Action should be in writing with specific tasks to be completed, who is completing them, and deadlines for each. The District Commander will in turn, report weekly on each post using the District Status Report, and submit to the membership team.
Although every post in your district may have issues of some kind or another, focus first and foremost on the posts below 70% for membership and/or poor compliance. As tasks are completed and issues are resolved, posts will be added and deleted from your District Status Report. Working on every post in your district will be overwhelming. Start small and accomplish a great deal for a few posts with the greatest need in your districts. A column has been added to the Administrative Compliance Report under “Best Practices” to track submissions of your District Status Reports.
Admittedly, there might be reluctance on the part of some post leaders to enter into a course of action, or they may have no officers willing to do the work. After all, posts govern their own business. But, if these posts are not complying with Legion requirements and are not completing membership tasks, these are the exact posts that need to be identified and a solution discussed and determined. Remember you are not alone on this. Work with the department membership team, and if necessary, a resolution for these types of issues will be determined by department leadership. Post leaders are volunteers, we understand that, but as the Western Region Vice Commander put it, they have accepted the position they are in and, therefore, they have a duty to their posts and every member of that post, along with The American Legion.
The District Status Report, in PDF fill-in format, is available on the caLegion.org website under “Membership.”
Good luck. I look forward to seeing your progress. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Paula Bibby
Membership Director
Author: caLegion Contributor
The above article may contain opinions which are the author's own and may not necessarily reflect an official stance taken by The American Legion Department of California. We do our best to vet any information posted to the website. Please email webteam@calegion.org with any changes and/or corrections to anything published here.
