Launching a mission-centered membership program offers a terrific opportunity for nonprofits to rally a base of like-minded supporters around a cause, while creating an entirely new stream of recurring revenue. However, it can be more difficult to build a thriving membership program than many nonprofits expect.

In the spring of 2014, a longtime volunteer of a sports massage association named Ray noticed something worrisome about his organization: after two decades of steady growth, membership had begun to slump. Ray, who owed much of his career success to the association, worried it would die off. So he decided to do something about it and became the Executive Director of the association, with a mission to turn it around.