This stage covers the point at which you formally launch your consortium, and invite organisations to join.
If you have gone through the previous stages thoroughly, membership recruitment should flow naturally out of work you have already done. A good communications strategy will keep potential member organisations up to date with your progress. Developing your business plan will have involved you deciding on membership criteria and a recruitment process, ie which organisations will be eligible to be members and how you will recruit and vet them.
Most voluntary sector consortia have a two-tier membership structure.
For associate members there is usually a plan in place to support them to become contract-ready.
There should also be the possibility for the consortium to engage with very small organisations, even unincorporated associations. The consortium can remunerate them for the delivery of small-scale but nonetheless crucial activities (eg reach and engagement activities within ‘hard-to-reach’ communities) without the need for them to become consortium members and having the burden of going through the membership process. This would involve light touch, non-contracting payment methods, such as spot purchasing and payment on invoice.
A consortium can also subcontract to organisations outside of the membership, including national charities and private-sector organisations. Those organisations do not need to be consortium members and obviously would not have access to the benefits derived from consortium membership.
Last reviewed: 14 October 2020
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