About
Many of you wonder why I started this endeavor. I do not get anything out of it financially and it costs me money. So one might wonder why I got involved it it to begin with. It all began with an event that changed my life 5 years ago.
Over the last several years I have been searching for answers. About 5 years ago I stopped going to the non profit I grew up loving. This is saying a lot for me. After 28 years as a Freemason. 5 times a Past Master in PA and once in NJ. I blamed about changes handed down in Grand Lodge in both states. Decisions I considered arbitrary made by people in authority in charge of what I was raised to think about as the greatest institution in the world.
You see I have 22 years of experience in DeMolay, 32 years’ experience in blue Lodge, and 30 years’ experience in Eastern Star, not to mention being born into the fraternity itself. My Mother and father were Officers in the Family of FreeMasonry for my conception and birth. So, I have had 84 years of experience as a member, and a lifetime if watching and studying the family of Freemasonry.
Over the years I have acquired what many would describe as a Treasure Trove of Useless Knowledge. But a tidbit or two may be worth repeating. I had learned the ins and outs of running a Masonic body. I learned how to get members quickly and easily, only to be angry when most of them would leave the fraternity, and tell me there was noting to keep them there. I had to wrestle with the thoughts of those that called us a cult, I had to come to terms with the fact that role models on mainstream media were not Freemasons. But I settled that with diving in deeper. I never ever spent a year in the fraternity where I was not an officer, advisor, or committee head somewhere.
Upon returning I found the lodge shrinking. Not only was my lodge shrinking, so was seemingly every lodge. Then I noticed the fraternity at large was shrinking, and in turn every non profit I found was shrinking, including churches, fire departments, civic groups, and the like. So I started diving into tons of research and found some alarming answers. The answers I found are worth sharing, and like a lot of infections that are hard to cure, it’s a compound thing.
Based on what I found, I give a lot of talks to nonprofits and if you do find some nugget you read here useful, I’ll be happy to come to you and help with talks about finding your why, quality team building, human asset inventory, getting new membership, managing millennials in the fraternity, leadership, and a host of other helpful topics to keep a nonprofit healthy and productive. Just ask and I’ll be there if It’s within the length of my cable tow.
On to My About
I have researched and sourced much of the information in this article form several sources, like The New England Journal of Medicine, Start With Why, and Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. Turn this ship around By L David Marquet and a collective 84 years of watching and learning from The Family of Freemasonry, its leaders and those in charge.
In search of “Why”
Finding why has become one of the most important tasks that the non profit has faced in 2000 years. Masonic history has been grounded in the search for what was lost from time in memoriam. Finding why, is not only equally important but has surpassed what was lost in importance 10-fold.
My why was realized In 2010. Right Worshipful Tomas K Sturgeon was elected to the high and honorable office of Grand Master of the ancient and honorable society of Free and accepted masons in Pennsylvania and all Jurisdictions thereunto belonging. At that time, he created 27 landmark changes to Freemasonry in the Commonwealth. Changes that earned him threats to his very life. And he outlined them in The Pennsylvania Freemason, then had the District Deputies outline them at the District Schools of Instruction then he sent the District Deputies to each individual lodge to outline them. Then in 2011 he summoned each of the masters and wardens to a large meeting in each region. Mine was in Bethlehem PA where I gathered with about 500 men and their wives and listened to our Grand Master.
I know at that time I felt, If I have to listen one more time about these friggin changes being shoved down our throat….. But I was pleasantly surprised, shocked, and most importantly, reached. See, he did not want to share “what” so much as “why” that he felt the changes were necessary.
Now that talk was 13 years ago and I will agree that I am a tad fuzzy about the year by year predictions, and the exact numbers but here is the take away, 13 years later I remember this wise leader and his points and presentation.
To Summarize RW. Sturgeon’s Talk. He too had been studying the fraternity for some time. Between 1971 when he joined, to 2011. For those 39 years he had been examining numbers. He is what you would call a numbers guy. And he was looking very hard at the decline of membership in the fraternity over 40 some years. And it was around 10% per year on average.
10% is an interesting figure because it is not high enough to cause immediate alarm, but high enough to identify a problem. See we all knew there was an issue. We knew on average that for every 4 men we brought into the fraternity, 3 did not last more than 1 year. We knew our lodge memberships were decreasing, and that our dues and fundraising efforts were increasing. And we were getting help from above.
We were told to
1.Put more Masonic content in our meetings (I have already discussed this aspect and how it doesn’t work)
2.Things were put in place like background checks and longer and harder memory work for the new guy to learn, Higher fees to join. Etc. (Yes, I know you need members, let us help you out and make it harder for you to get them in)
3.Get more members (this was my favorite) (every plumber knows the answer to a leak is to turn up the pressure, right?)
Over the years I noticed something that should be apparent to Freemasons but strangely is not. Masonic family groups are structured like a building or edifice. Grand Lodge in this is the “Roof” over our heads, the lodges are the walls, and we the members are the “Foundation”. If we are going to fix this, we need to fix the foundation, and from experience I’m telling you, that the roof and the walls are not going to help.
It is important to note that it is not 10% of RW Sturgeon’s 1971 number each year, it 10% of the new number each year. Much more drawn out but still plot-able.
So, if the commonwealth had 100,000 members in 1970, in 1971 we lose 10,000 members.
In 1972 9,000
In 1973 8,100 and so on. So, it looks like we are getting better because we are losing less, but still holding steady at 10% each year. (On average)
10% also makes it easy to extrapolate those numbers into the future, based on some assumptions that the Grand Lodge assessment would not change, and RW Sturgeon held nothing back in the projections.
1. Pennsylvania is the largest jurisdiction in the world. Meaning there are more members in PA than any other jurisdiction in the world.
2. That by 2030, due to the loss in revenue we will no longer be able to afford to support most of the outright owned Masonic Temples.
3.By 2035 we were not going to be able to afford the Grand Lodge Building, The Philadelphia Masonic Temple. It will have to be sold. (Gasp)
4.By 2040 We will have to sell off the the Masonic Homes (BIGGER GASP)
5.By 2045 there would not be enough Freemasons left to open a Masonic lodge
6.And by 2050 the last Freemason in PA will have Passed away. Freemasonry in the Commonwealth will have ceased to exist.
Now in the beginning of the talk he underlined the largest jurisdiction in the world was PA. Which means that when the last Freemason dies in 2050, that is the last Freemason on earth, and that was why the 27 landmark changes were put in place. And for a while that worked. We did not reach his goal of 10,000 masons raised in one day, but we came close, I think around 7500. And for the first time in 40 years, we had a positive growth number. However, later Grand Masters did not continue enough support of the solution. They were traditionalists and went back to the practices from the good old days hoping that somehow cyclic events would prove to be the solution. Plus…. They were missing something. Something really important, and there is the why question again, and it’s the same for all non profits not just Freemasonry.
Why is there a Masonic Lodge. That is an important one. Arguably the number one purpose of a lodge or chapter unit is to make more members.
Number 2 is to serve the community in which it is created.
There is a host, of other purposes and things that they do, but it’s about time that we admit the top two and everything else be in support of those.
The next one is why did you join the group?
That is an individual decision, and it will help you bring others into the fraternity. Each of you knows why you joined.
The hardest one and the one we are most concerned with is why you stay in the fraternity. Why did you not become part of that 75% loss in the first year. And I suspect it has a lot to do with your own personal why. We develop our why in our teen or pre teen years when we decide what sort of person we are going to be. And I would add that our why’s do not change or evlove in time. It makes us who we are, and it helps us individually understand why we stay in the fraternity.
That talk in Bethlehem by RW Sturgeon inspired me. And I was inspired t fix the problem. That year I brought 15 new members in. But I also discovered my why. Inspiration is my why. I don’t know what it is, but when I sit in the same room as you, I feel inspired.
I can say when I go to many gatherings of nonprofits, I feel inspired, and if I do not, I start to lose my joy as a member, and I do not return to those events. That is why that 76% leave, and why they are shrinking each year.
The members have lost their why they stay because group lost their why. The members are no longer inspired, so they leave. If your group is just meeting because the bylaws say you have to, and you are just having the same meeting every night, then I assure you that is not inspiring, you are jut carrying on because of inertia. If that inertia ever slows down, you call in the merger committee. When that happens enough eventually the group will cease to exist. Each of us needs to do our part to inspire others. If you are lacking inspiration, you should recognize it, and form a plan with your leaders to and create inspiration. Go find a nonprofit that inspires you with its beauty, solemnity, and brother / sisterhood. Go be part of something great. For those of you in charge, make your events inspirational. Here is the rule: When your events stop being inspirational, your members disappear. Find the why for each event meeting, and gathering, and consider that essential. Meetings for the sake of meetings are just a waste of the members time. So that is my reasoning for Save my non profit. I just want to help. I’m not against anyone else’s efforts, whoever can help should. And I sincerely hope they do. Go dig in to the content here, I’m sure you will find something that will help.