It has been some hectic months since I was instated as Director of Development in the middle of the summer – a time when many are away on vacation and/or would rather be out in the sun instead.
And just as people start getting back online it is time to prepare for the annual IBD meeting, which is being held in the USA this year (Dallas, Texas). As you know, there was – and is – a global pandemic (and that effect isn’t completely gone yet). There are wars going on. In general, the world could be doing better. The world is changing, and we must change with it.
As someone has said once or twice before: “Improvise, adapt, and overcome.” – at least if we want to avoid going the way of the dinosaurs. Development requires us to find out what works and what doesn’t. It requires us to be able to identify the obstacles, we must be able to adapt to changes, and we need to seize the good opportunities in a safe and responsible manner. What worked 20 years ago might not work today. And what worked in one country might have the opposite effect in another country. Some countries see good growth, while others are in decline.
That being said, we are seeing an increase in members and are now around 150,000 members all over the globe. That’s a high number, and something we should be able to use as leverage on an international scale! On a somewhat smaller scale, but still important: recently a new IBD motion was approved which revised the policy for Emerging, Provisional National and Full National Mensa groups, and one effect of this was that several Emerging Mensas were upgraded to Provisional National Mensas: Indonesia, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Pakistan, and The Philippines. They will have some time to fully qualify for that classification, and I’m hopeful we’ll get there!
Since we want to keep growing, we’ll need to find ways to make this happen. There are several areas we could focus on to get a healthy, sustainable growth:
Advertising. We need to be known, people need to be aware of us. We should probably not do a 30-second Super Bowl commercial, at least not yet – unless someone connects us with the right benefactor.
Testing. Due to the way Mensa is built we require new members to take one of several intelligence tests. In several countries there are no inexpensive and easily accessible ways of getting tested. And it’s normally not as simple as hopping on a plane and then shout: “Come here to get tested!” in a town square. Countries can also have laws restricting who can conduct testing. I don’t want anyone to be imprisoned just for not checking the rules in advance.
Recruitment. We want to turn non-members into members. Most of the time this happens after they have attended one of our testing sessions, but there are also many people joining based on tests taken elsewhere.
Retention. We have several countries that are very good at keeping their members around, year after year. This works for a while but it’s not sustainable if there’s not also new recruits coming in.
Licensing deals and sponsorships could also give us monetary growth which we could then use for our other purposes. A licensing deal is a means to an end, and not the ultimate goal.
There are ongoing initiatives to conduct testing in new countries with the help from neighbouring Mensa countries. This requires planning, volunteers need to have time for it, etc. We can’t just say “Be fruitful, and multiply!” and hope it turns out well – so we are working on a framework for how to do this in a responsible manner. Some of the groundwork we need to do might be considered boring, but it’s still important to have a good online presence, good-looking and functional web pages, and reliable e-mail communication, so work is being done on those as well.
Mensa Norway has provided a free online intelligence test for some time now, and while it can’t be used as an entrance test to become a member it can be used to bring some attention to us. It has over 2 million users every year – or around 6100 users every day! While the test itself is language neutral, the test instructions are not. Work is underway to expand it with support for more languages, and thanks to help from volunteers, it now has been translated into more languages.
Speaking of tests, there is also a project to develop an adaptive intelligence test. I’m looking forward to being able to use this for development of new Mensa countries! Contact me if you have something you’d like to ask about or discuss, but I can’t promise everything will happen – we don’t have unlimited time and resources. At the end of the day we are all volunteers, so let’s help each other out!
Reprinted from the Mensa World Journal, 12/2023, issue 131.