Why nobody joins your student organization, or nobody stays

Why nobody joins your student organization, or nobody staysThree walls, and how to get past them

You may be confident in what you stand for and what you do, and have no idea why nobody comes. Or people apply and then withdraw before joining, or go quiet within weeks.

You may want to give new members discretion and still check everything, because an important document or an outside email going wrong is frightening. From their side, they were supposedly given the work and yet need approval for everything, and nothing feels like doing anything.

Some organizations build such thorough training that nobody reaches real work for a long time. Others prize freedom, say "come up with whatever you like", and watch nothing happen.

You may be torn between pulling up a member who does little and telling them to put school and exams first. And when someone says they want to leave, it can feel as though the organization collapses unless you stop them.

Let this go on and the founder starts feeling like the only serious person in the room. Meanwhile the members may be thinking they have no idea what the founder wants, and that they are a disappointment.

So this piece splits it into three walls — nobody joins, new members cannot get moving, everything lands on the founder — and looks at how to rebuild.

Who this is for

• Organizations recruiting and getting no applications
• Organizations that get applications and then lose people
• Founders unsure what to hand a new member
• Anyone stuck on how training connects to real work
• Organizations where work and information all sit with the founder
• Anyone unsure whether to be firm with a member
• Anyone worn down by uneven effort and uneven enthusiasm
• Anyone wanting rules for pausing, changing role and leaving
• Organizations that added meetings and reports and still went nowhere
• Anyone wondering whether keeping everyone is what keeps the organization alive

Before concluding that the answer is more committed people, check whether there is a path by which someone joins, holds a role, and gets into the decisions.

When nobody moves, it feels like a judgement on you

A founder has been thinking about the problem and the work for a long time.

So when replies are slow, meetings are missed and deadlines pass, it starts to feel as though nobody else takes it as seriously.

From the other side, they may be thinking:

• I don't know what I'm supposed to do;
• I can't see what standard is expected;
• my suggestions don't get used;
• I can't move without approval;
• if I get it wrong I won't be given anything again;
• saying I'm busy will look like not caring.

Missed deadlines and unanswered messages are the person's responsibility, and should be treated as such.

But when it repeats across several people, look at the machinery as well as the motivation.

Wall 1: they agree with the principle and cannot picture the life

Recruitment text usually conveys what the organization stands for and how it feels about the problem.

That is essential for showing where the work is heading.

But "people who want to change society" and "people serious about trying" leave an applicant unable to judge whether they could actually do it。

So also give:

• what you currently run;
• the role you are recruiting for;
• the first job they would hold;
• which day meetings are, and when;
• how much is online and how much in person;
• how much time per week or month;
• what the busy periods cost;
• what the training covers;
• how exam periods and other crunches are handled;
• how to pause, change role or leave;
• what they would pay for themselves.

Spelling out the reality may look like a way to lose applicants.

But hide the cost, gather a lot of people, and the gap that opens after they join is what makes them leave early。

Connect the principle to the work you actually hand over

Our mission is that every teenager should get to meet the person they have not yet become.

Reflecting that in recruitment means more than adding hands to keep the organization running.

It means having roles in which someone who joins gets to:

• contact a local authority for the first time;
• teach in a school for the first time;
• build a policy or a project for the first time;
• carry a team's decision for the first time;
• take concrete criticism and rebuild something for the first time.

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Give someone who joined for the principle nothing but tasks with no visible context, and what they expected and what they get come apart.

Even for a simple job, explain:

• what it is for;
• who it affects;
• what it unblocks when it is done;
• how much they may decide themselves.

Connect the small job to what the organization is for.

Wall 2: new members are left waiting before any real work

Someone joins and the briefings and training go on and on, with no real work.

Or they are handed no documents and no context and told to plan whatever they like.

The first leaves nothing that feels like taking part. The second leaves nothing to judge by.

One answer is not to separate training from work at all.

Cover the basics

What the organization is for, what it runs, how people communicate, and the rules.

Hold a small piece of real work

Minutes, research, participant information, checking a document — something where "finished" is clear.

Check partway

Fix a mid-point check rather than looking at it for the first time on the deadline.

Give the reason for a decision

When asking for changes, explain them against the aim, the audience and the facts — not the founder's taste.

Widen the discretion

Once one job is complete, hand over a larger stage, or a decision.

Handing someone something big is not the same as abandoning them without explanation.

Wall 3: only the founder has the information and the authority

As an organization grows, outside contact, the history of every project and the final call all gather around the founder.

The founder gets busy and wants to hand things over.

But hand over the task without the information and the authority and the member simply waits for the founder to check it。

Which produces the loop:

1. a member checks with the founder;
2. the founder is slow to reply;
3. the work stops;
4. the founder takes it back;
5. the member gains no experience;
6. the founder feels nobody is moving.

This is not a matter of the founder being at fault, or the members.

The founder may be checking to prevent mistakes. The member may be waiting so as not to cause trouble by deciding alone.

To reduce the dependence, make these explicit:

• how far the person responsible may decide;
• which outside messages need checking;
• how much budget they may spend;
• where past decisions and their reasons are recorded;
• who can check in the founder's place;
• who helps put it right when something goes wrong.

Connect what a person is struggling with to what the organization decides

Staying takes more than getting on well and being praised. It takes feeling that your view and your work reach the organization's decisions.

We run a monthly governance cycle:

1. 1on1
2. monthly report;
3. one-to-one with the director;
4. regular board meeting;
5. all-hands;
6. minutes shared within 48 hours.

The number of mechanisms is not the point。

Hear someone's difficulty in a one-to-one and change neither their role nor their support, and all you did was listen.

Have people write monthly reports that the board never decides on and the all-hands never hears, and reporting is just a burden.

Give each mechanism an exit:

A small organization does not need all of this.

Find where information is getting stuck, and put a mechanism only there.

Keeping everyone is not necessarily good management

When someone leaves, the founder can take it as a judgement on how they run it or on what the organization stands for.

And the person leaving may feel that having joined, going is irresponsible.

But keeping everyone is not necessarily good management。

Members have school, exams, families, clubs, jobs and their own health.

Assume the load will change, and provide:

• normal participation;
• a reduced load;
• a pause;
• a change of role;
• leaving.

What you need to establish is operational, not the details of their personal circumstances:

• from when the load changes;
• who takes over their work;
• who picks up their outside contacts;
• when you check about returning or leaving.

Design the first 90 days before you recruit

Before recruiting, work out what happens after someone joins.

First week

• the basics explained;
• added to the communication channels;
• access to the documents;
• someone assigned to ask.

Within a month

• a small job of their own;
• a deadline and a definition of finished;
• a mid-point check;
• a first review.

Within three months

• responsibility for one stage of a project;
• a space in which they decide;
• a conversation about continuing, changing role or pausing;
• agreeing what they take on next.

How many people you recruit is only the entrance to building an organization。

It becomes strength only when you have designed what they understand, what they hold, which decisions they carry and who they can ask.

Teenagers wanting to start something where they live can use our free thirty-minute online conversation. Book through the site — you do not need your numbers, your activities or your problems tidied up first.

Frequently asked questions