Virtual 1 - Shriners Lead the Way: Creating Change: A Case Study

[title card] Shriners International Education Foundation presents: Shriners Lead the Way: A Masonic Centered Approach to Membership and Marketing: Creating Change: A Case Study

[title card] Noble Academy logo; Rusty Petty | Potentate, Imperial Marketing Committee, Region 3 | Ansar Shriners; Shriners International Education Foundation logo

So, the bad news and some good news. So, like many temples, Ansar has been on a membership decline over the past few years. We currently sit right around 2100 members, but have lost a dest in the midst, over 400 members in the last five years. So we still have amazing parade units and geographic and interest clubs but have had to merge and shutter severally recently, the average age of our temple is still pretty high thing right around 72 years and our temple is in need of thousands of dollars in deferred maintenance and we are at the point of having to decide on a new path just for the building. But Ansar is very fortunate. We are fortunate to have access to monetary resources, and we are fortunate to have a young Divan with many active younger members. So much so that we have also been chartering some new interest-based clubs like a bourbon and cigar club and a fishing club. So Ansar had the resources that could be tapped and we had the members who were willing to step up.

[a slide titled "Shriners of the Corn, Shriners International Education Foundation. Ansar Shrine: An Early Case Study." Left column reads "Next Next Steps: Leadership Connections, Joint Committees, Opened Meetings, Local Efforts" and right column reads "Big Steps: Budget, Shared Resources, Ansar2030, Membership Townhalls"]

How did we redesign what Ansar was doing, and how did we break out of the slump? So it did not take place overnight, and it's still an evolving work in constant progress using the 2023 circus as an advertising excuse Ansar contracted with a professional marketing firm to manage our social media impact. So we had great success with this, with over 1.5 million impressions and paid in organic posts. We committed $3,000 a month for their professional advice and management and have not looked back since. They work all the time to redefine the Ansar brand and how we communicate for the first time in a long time. So we established committees to support to Divan and to get more Nobles involved in the fraternity. The membership committee is actually comprised of Masons who are Shriners, but several who are not in the shrine.

[a slide titled "What if Nobody Comes? Shriners International Education Foundation Ansar Shrine: An Early Case Study Membership Townhall." Left column reads "Ansar-wide Effort, Masonic Partnership, Masons & Non-Masons, 90-Minute Presentations, No Pressure No Hype" and right column reads "Marketing Efforts: Social, Paid Targeting, Networking, Friend-to-Friend"]

So we look for members who are natural Masonic salesmen to push our message and based on the data that we receive from our marketing gurus, we continue to reframe our brand and our message. But as it turns out, fraternity community charity, we're not huge sellers, and attracting potential members to our streams. Beer, cars, cigars, social events, in other word,s being seen as fun and open. Those messages were received and responded to and we also encourage our clubs and units to focus on membership and to use some of the money that they raised each year to host non-members for outreach and for all and to lodges and to be more engaged within the community. We elevated our communication strategy by emailing out a weekly membership newsletter. When we began this endeavor, we only had about 800 good email addresses, and by constantly asking for contact information, we now have over 1500 good email addresses. Membership and marketing were becoming one program that supported each other for the benefit of Ansar shrine.

During 2024, we continued to build on the idea of leading a collaboration effort. We reached out to leaders and other Appendant bodies to work together on like-minded projects, Ansar continued to host joint committees of nobles and non-Nobles alike. We opened our stated meetings as much as we could to interested Masons and hosted Lodge masters as our highlighted members at stated meetings. We have literally thrown the doors open of Ansar Temple and we have also continued to budget for marketing and membership. This year's budget was $50,000. Now that sounds like a lot of money, but based on our social media data, are successful circus last weekend and how members and others are reacting, I'm sure that this is not enough. We have began offering our buildings to community charities for their events as well as other Masonic bodies. Two weeks ago, Ansar hosted the Illinois statewide reunion for Scottish Rite with nearly 200 men in attendance.

[A flyer that reads "Have you ever thought about becoming a Mason? Maybe your dad or grandfather is a Mason, Maybe you're a Mason but want to learn about other Masonic Orgs, Maybe you're looking for something more, Maybe you've heard the conspiracy theories, Whatever the reason, please join us to learn more about Masonic Membership. Masonic Townhall, Thursday October 3rd 6:30 to 8pm, Ansar Shrine Temple 630 South 6th SPFLD, IL. More info & RSVP AnsarTownhall@gmail.com. Drinks Snacks and Answers. See you on the 3rd!" next to a smaller flyer that reads "Ansar Shrine and Valley of Springfield Membership Townhall. Are you interested in Freemasonry? Are you a Master Mason interested in next steps? Are you community service minded? Are you looking for a values-based organization? Are you ready to become a Mason? A calendar icon next to text that reads 'Oct. 3, 2024'; a clock icon next to text that reads 'Start at 6:30p.m. - 8:00p.m.'; a map location icon next to text that reads '630 S. 6th Springfield, IL'; More info AnsarTownhall@gmail.com"]

Most of these men had never been into our building and many were not Shriners. We have kicked off the Ansar2030. This to be our first five-year strategic plan in a long time. This living document is currently being finished up with seven different committees working to make it a success, and this year, we hosted three membership town halls in partnership with the three Scottish Rite valleys in our jurisdiction. The town hall idea continues the idea of throwing open the doors to Masonry and its Appendant bodies. Ansar partnered with the Valley of Quincy on our western edge, the Valley of Danville on our eastern border, in the Valley of Springfield, which is centrally located. The idea for these was to invite Masons and non-Masons alike to learn about masonry and our appendant bodies. By growing masonry, we will grow the shrine. We encourage partners and spouses to attend.

Each evening was 90 minutes with speakers from Blue Lodge Shrine, Scottish Rite, York Rite, and we had youth groups represented: Order of the Eastern Star, Daughters of the Nile, and even The Grotto. We didn't want anyone to feel like this was a timeshare pitch. We specifically did not have a sign-in sheet and told attendees that we would not be hounding them after the session. We did have petitions for Lodge and Independent Bodies if they were interested, though. Our marketing efforts for this involve paid and organic social media, Masonic networking between different bodies, and direct friend-to-friend asks. The branding and messaging we used was fun and it was the same across the jurisdiction. We appealed to legacies, we appealed to current masons and we appealed to community interests and values. Of course, we appealed to pure curiosity. The images we chose also conveyed more than the fez or men in suits or parade-dress uniforms.

Here are the raw facts from this effort: Around 50 men engage with us in these different three different town halls. We had 150,000 unique impressions, and we spent just under $1,000 on all the marketing for this event, and less for all evenings was snacks and drinks. We had participation from nine different bodies and the leaders of some of the bodies expressed that they found the event interesting because they did not know about some of the other Masonic bodies and we invited the public into our secret buildings and finally, between all the different independent bodies we took in 22 petitions. Now this doesn't seem like a lot, but what a great start. So what we have learned from this two-year effort is that we have a lot to learn. Probably the best takeaway is that we started planning. The simple act of actually planning leads to execution, successful or not. The success is that we moved forward. Next year and in 2026, we will have three town hall meetings in the spring and three in the fall.

We also learned that we should have just focused on having something at a large Masonic temple, but we can do these in community centers or churches, or other locations that may not be so intimidating. We are adding a community relations chair and a committee to the membership and marketing team to build our capacity with other organizations and other events, not just parades throughout Central Illinois. So we will make a lot more mistakes, but we will own them. We will learn from them and we'll keep planning and executing. We are excited to continue building solid relationships with Masonic leadership throughout our area. And next year we'll also be reaching out directly to include Prince Hall into our efforts, and we'll continue to permeate Ansar with the message of membership through communication, our ambassadors in our clubs and units. Not everything is going to work, but we are not going to listen to those who think nothing will work or who continue to rely on. We've always done it that way.