We've just finished signing up members for our third year at Prairieland
CSA in Champaign, IL. Over three years we've grown from 30 (1994) to 70
(1995) to 110 (1996) members, but have had high turnover and a trend
toward more people purchasing the smaller of the two size shares we
offer. Despite a slow start in recruiting this February and March, we
ended up surpassing our outreach goals by the beginning of May.
Approximately 2/3 of last years 70 shareholders left and many more new
members joined this year. Many of our shareholders are from the local
university community (University of Illinois) so we expect a fair amount
of turnover, but not this much and we have little success getting surveys
back from the shareholders that don't come back.
I am interested in hearing from other CSA's how great their turnover is
and if turnover rates do eventually drop as CSAs grow older. I expected
a high percentage of the first-time members to not return, but I also
expected that over the years first-time members would make up a smaller
and smaller percentage of the CSA, thus decreasing the overall turnover
rate. This doesn't seem to be happening.
After we take a closer look at the various ways we did outreach and which
were most effective, I plan to post the results to CSA-L. I would be
interested in what types of outreach work for other CSA's as well as any
innovative ideas such as the CSA that gives out free sample shares during
the season.
John Barclay, Prairieland CSA, Champaign, IL