Retention is a method of enabling the members or volunteers to remain active wit h in an organisation.

Retention mainly focuses on preserving a convenient environment, m ember morale, and organisational growth. o A pool of members who have the ability to be the future leaders. o A strong pointer for organisational success. o A happy organisational environment. o A group of members who come to your help when required. Keys to strong retention: Involvement: Allow involvement of members with program planning and execution, to help with organisational features and programming. It is important to note that members us ually hate attending meetings for long hours and hearing to what the leaders speak. So, off ering them some encouragement will help them to be an active participant in such organisational activities. For example, encouraging employees to involve in their assigned task and perform wel l in the form of incentives or performance appraisals. Ownership: Allow the members to contribute in decision making or give them a chance to open ly raise their voice for their needs, interests, and opinions. Also allows them to involve in taking up the ownership. For example, if an employee has any issue with the decision made by t he organisation regarding some their assigned tasks, then he can raise his voice against the dec ision and put forward his viewpoint on that. He must also be in a position to take up the owne rship of the assigned task. Benefits: Propose some benefits or incentives for members to be active in the organisation . Benefits can be physical, vague, or both. For example, if the employee is consistently pe rforming well, then he can be rewarded for his performance in the form of performance bonus or incen tives. Some of the retention strategies include: Conversations: Active conversations with members help in creating a convenient working environment and making sure that members have a secure feeling in the organisati on. It is not mandatory that conversations must deal with organisational business or concerns, but instead a small-talk and chit-chat are enough. Updates: Regular updates through emails, news-sheet, websites, or meetings help in sustai ning a high-level of interest as it is evident that people may lose their interest in a

n organisation if they do not get constant updates about what the organisation is planning for. General meetings: General meetings are the most accepted methodologies adopted by an organisation to circulate information and update members. However, the main disa dvantage with general meetings is that they are inactive wherein members simply sit and listen to what the leaders speak. These meetings must also focus on getting members involved in som e activity.