Boosting OPDG Membership

This note is a continuation of a larger discussion on the Oregon PERS Discussion Group about strategies to engage a larger number of PERS retirees and active workers in the struggle to protect and preserve member retirement benefits.  A subset of the OPDG discussion has been the need for an organization designed to meet the current and future needs of retirees.

The greatest challenge in forming special interest groups is capturing the awareness of the population of potential members. The recalculation letters PERS mailed in late 2007,created a greater awareness that a change in benefits was occurring.  As a result, some retirees were searching for more information and discovered the OPDG forum.  It seemed reasonable that OPDG should be able to leverage the new awareness and increase forum membership.

It has been suggested that advertising be purchased in Oregon newspapers to call attention to the existence of OPDG and the need for retirees to unite in defense of our retirement benefits.  This is a Cadillac solution and the cost is likely to far exceed the cost for the PERS Document Library.  There is another option worthy of consideration.

With declining readership and ad revenue moving to the web, Newspapers are under as much economic pressure as any segment of the economy.  If newspapers are presented with well written stories of local interest, it is conceivable they will publish them.  A case was made that a virtual group of current and former Oregon public workers united by common interests contributing labor and money toward a specific objective was a newsworthy item.  This approach could be especially effective with small local and regional papers where cost pressures for newspapers are most intense.

What was needed were focal points that offers value to the widest group of people.  The Oregon PERS Document Library could serve as an initial focal point for an OPDG success story.  It has a David vs. Goliath component; was initiated by a small group of PERS retirees and supported by a virtual organization with more than a 1,000 members to fight for justice.  More important, it has something for almost everyone and no one else provides the same service.  A partnership with the PERS Coalition, leveraging the investment in the PERS Document Library, the Oregon PERS Information blog and OPDG would greatly enhance our ability to reach out and keep PERS workers and retirees informed.

Looking at the big picture, OPDG serves as a quasi-organizational unit.  All members have an equal voice and polling services can be used to register member positions on different issues.  Marc's Blog (Oregon PERS Information) serves as an editorial platform and the Document Library functions as a static repository of records and messages.  OPRI already includes links to all three of these sites.  This concept integrates three existing components in a cohesive form more likely to achieve a common purpose.

One final thought, this concept does not preclude other actions to enhanced OPDG membership and focuses our energy in a positive direction.