If involvement is the problem then I can see why the survey is off to a slow start; you're asking people to get involved. My school had a fairly active chapter of the AIAS and I think the reason they got people involved is that they had pizza at the meetings. Oh, and peer pressure...If you got enough people involved (a critical mass) then others followed. Good luck.

Sam - I've spent a fairly large proportion of my time over the past 20+ years serving as a volunteer leader in AIA. I fully understand your frustration. Looking back on all those years, I think the one bit of wisdom I can offer is this: in any volunteer organization, individual participation is directly related to how well the organization can address the "what's in it for me?" question for individual volunteers.

You can preach altruism until you're blue in the face, but if potential volunteers don't see a specific and direct personal benefit to participation, they won't take time away from their work, their families or their other personal interests to volunteer in your organization. Solve that particular problem for your own particular constituency and you'll have more volunteers than you can handle.

If I can combine Brian and quizzical's comment a bit, one way to get more participation is to make sure it's FUN.  When I was active in AIA it was with a group of similar-aged and enthusiastic practitioners who I enjoyed seeing at meetings and events.  Unfortunately so many architects are mentally down in the dumps these days, getting up a good energy level in order to attract more good energy is really hard!  Maybe a Buddy System would help?  I say that only partly in jest...

The other issue is of course cost.  I've not joined AIA since 2009, guess why? Can't afford it any more. So maybe you give two or three people a "buddy discount" in which they get a percentage off if they join at the same time and commit to attending 3 or 6 or whatever number of events over the year TOGETHER.  Like having an exercise partner, this helps your enthusiasm level AND ensures you'll have a buddy at the event in case it's a bore. This would be especially helpful for interns who are nervous about joining in because they are shy about exactly what "networking" is.

Good luck! And free booze always entices people, too!

ok.....i am the president of our local chapter of AIA. ugh!!! and this is not my first time as a "volunteer leader" either.

recently, in an attempt to get more involvement from membership,  a committee chair suggested that members give an 8-10 minute mandatory  presentation of their work, travel, art project, community project...anything at our regular monthly dinner meeting. i asked the chair to re-think the idea cause they hadn't a consequence for those members who choose not to participate - "oh we didn't think about that yet" - this idea was floated to get more membership involved in the chapter. i think it sucks! membership has enough on their plates (ceu's, dues, work, bills...etc...) - that - to add a mandatory presentation for members without consequence - is simply ludicrous! this is not to say that i would love to see members show their work (even if it is artwork) to membership in a  "show n' tell" type of meeting. maybe it would be FUN. i have asked our program committee chair to look into the idea and try to come up with an even proposal that membership would jump onto. this year our executive committee has decided to concentrate on new associate membership along with new architect membership. a membership drive is not always fun but needs to be done - so the legislative agenda that gets our state AIA in action in our state capitol has produced results that benefit architects, nationals legislative agenda has produced positive results for members in the past, and locally we have lobbied our town halls with certain ideas and new standards that benefit not only architects per se, but, more importantly the general public. members get behind these efforts and if they see more of it then they will join in the fight. i will not bore you all with details of these lobbying efforts by national or state or our local chapter, but without some AIA architects time and commitment devoted to making the profession better through their lobbying - then those architects who are not members that benefit from these efforts - are just not getting it. your time is very important to you and i can not force one in a volunteer organization to do anything, AND,  i see it perfectly legit that for you to be a member just to put the initials after your name. all organizations have a core group that gives - i subscribe to the notion - "the more you give - the more you get".

presently, we have certain programs in place that are community driven and generate greater membership  involvement - but not enough. that's why i see associate membership as being of great value. we are not getting younger and to give the chapter away (to the younger professional) in a better place than i found it is where i choose to be.

donna, dues may be paid with a payment plan through national. for my state its less than $100/mo. for six months.

oh btw, i forgot - we produced a survey last month and received only 18 responses (out of 105 architect members) so we re - released it this month. details to follow!!!

Maybe you should fine members for not participating.

sam - u goin to grassroots?