.Membership numbers may continue to decline because
as more folks comply with more mandates to spend their income on items for their own good, less income for anything else, including dues and contributions, remain.
as more folks claim benefits from coercively-funded sources, demand for benefits through voluntarily-funded sources drops. As demand for benefits through voluntarily-funded sources drops, interest in funding these sources drops. This declining interest in funding leads to declining interest in membership.
as long as LIONS insist on trying to host parasitic entities representing coercively-funded sources, LIONS will continue to weaken as service-providers, and as a source of personal fulfillment through voluntary service. The more government folks do, the less government folks let volunteers do. Over time, volunteers spend resources complying with mandates, instead of investing resources in service opportunities, or using these resources to make grants or loans to qualified recipients. Over time, complying volunteers forget their connection to, and lose interest in, LIONS.
By the way, at what age point is there a significant membership number drop-off?
I get that LIONS Clubs flourish when folks do not turn to coercively-funded sources for help with social concerns.
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Here is a link to an essay that makes a point similar to one in this essay about why LIONS membership may be shrinking in the US
ReplyDeleteZara Billionaire's "Cheap" Philanthropy: $360 Million for Cancer Treatment
by Luis Pablo de la Horra
fee.org/articles/zara-billionaires-cheap-philanthropy-360-million-for-cancer-treatment/
Philanthropy is highly-regarded is those societies that celebrate the economic and non-economic benefits of markets and voluntary cooperation. Meanwhile the concept of philanthropy has a poorer image in those societies that tend to look to the State to solve problems.
As US society declines into a social entitlement system, interest in voluntary association declines amongst residents of the system.