Why members leave SPJ
A recent survey provided some interesting insights into the reasons why members leave SPJ.
One third of the 515 randomly selected former members who took part in the poll said they chose not to renew because they have left journalism.
The survey was conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University in March 2008.
Here are some other interesting findings from the survey:
- Half of the people who dropped out of SPJ worked for newspapers.
- The people who left gave SPJ high marks for efforts on ethics and more than two-thirds said they were satisfied with SPJ.
- About 21 percent said they felt the dues were too high.
- Job change was the most frequently cited reason for not renewing.
The survey comes at a time when newspapers across the county have been shedding jobs.
In April, an American Society of Newspaper Editors survey reported a loss last year of 2,400 jobs on full-time professional staffs, a decrease of about 4.4 percent to a total of 52, 600. That’s the biggest drop in 30 years. See link at: http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=6936
Despite that trend, SPJ has been able to hold its own, with membership remaining fairly steady between 8,800 to 9,200 over the last year. In fact, there has been a slight but steady uptick in recent weeks, owing in part to a 21 percent increase of postgraduate memberships.
However, in order to do a better job of growing SPJ and retaining members, we commissioned this study to determine who is leaving and why.
Here are some of the findings:
About two-thirds of the members who did not renew were SPJ members for five years or less. Nearly 40 percent left after two years or less.
When asked to rate SPJ on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest, former members graded SPJ with a 4.55 for journalism ethics, 4.49 for freedom of information access issues, 3.99 for enacting a federal shield law and 3.97 for diversifying coverage and sources.
When asked to rate SPJ communications, the former members gave the Quill an average of 3.88 and gave the SPJ website an average of 3.54.
Just over 70 percent said they were either completely or somewhat satisfied with SPJ. Local chapters drew a slightly lower score with 61.5 percent of the respondents saying they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their local chapter.
When asked what might draw them back to SPJ, 4.5 percent suggested lower dues and 3.3 percent suggested more local activity. Significantly, 80.7 percent did not respond to this question.
The SPJ membership committee will be discussing these finding later this week. We’d also be glad to hear from you. If you have a comment or you would like a copy of the report, please e-mail me at damon_runyon@hotmail.com
SPJ by the numbers
Membership this week 9, 171
Membership one month ago 9,000
Membership one year ago 8,694