Making Your Lodge Discoverable -by Toby Hanson, PGM, PGP

There was a glorious day when Odd Fellowship did not need to sell itself.  All the leading citizens of a town—the mayor, banker, police chief, newspaper editor, booster club president—were all members of the lodge.  Participating in parades and funerals was all the advertisement that was necessary to keep communities aware of their local lodge. Those days have passed, however, and many of our lodges languish in obvious obscurity in towns with little civic engagement.  There is still a demand—and a need—for Odd Fellowship in today’s world.  What there isn’t, though, is a clear way for interested people to find lodges.

In those glorious days of yesteryear, lodges did not need to advertise. Everyone knew to look up at the pediment of important buildings in town and look for “IOOF” or the Three Links to find the lodge hall.  A neat sign, usually painted on the glass of the front door, told passers-by which night was lodge night.  Some of the fancier and more modern lodges embraced the new-fangled fad of electric lights on the side of their halls to advertise which branch was meeting upstairs.  Lodges of today need to embrace the modern equivalent of those fancy electric lights to let their communities know that they exist and are open for new members to come in.

The first step to making your lodge discoverable is to ensure that everything available about your lodge online is correct and all inquiries are handled on a regular basis.  If you have a jurisdictional website (such as www.ioofwa.org), check it regularly to ensure it is up-to-date with accurate information about your lodge.  A good suggestion is to check it each year when you file your Annual Report (on time, and with no mistakes).  The Communications Committee of Sovereign Grand Lodge has put together a comprehensive directory of all lodges in the world at http://www.iooflodgedirectory.org.  Check the directory regularly to ensure that all contact information for your lodge is accurate.  There is a form on the website to update listings that are no longer correct.  Again, an annual review of lodge listings is a very good idea.

Google maintains a directory of buildings for use in its maps.  If your lodge has a building, be sure to look it up on Google Maps and claim the building as your own in the sidebar to the map display.  That will allow you to put in contact information so that others looking for your lodge can find it. Other online review sites such as Yelp! also have directories for buildings and you can claim your listing and add contact information and correct any information that members of the public may have contributed that is erroneous.  Some states also have directories of historic buildings.  If your lodge hall is on your state’s list, be sure to check that listing and ensure that all the information is correct.

For lodges on social media, regular engagement is vital.  If you have a Facebook page for your lodge, ensure that it gets checked with every meeting, either before or after (or both).  Facebook is becoming an increasingly valuable resource for making community connections and finding information.  Post pictures of events at least once a month. Even if it’s just cleaning the kitchen after a meeting, that still demonstrates activity to the outside world which shows that your lodge is functional and still accepting members.  Too often lodges create a Facebook page and then forget about it.  The page should be updated often enough that anyone who looks at it will know right away that the lodge is still in existence and still active.  It also serves as a resource for those who are interested in joining the lodge.  When they see an active, engaging lodge they are more likely to reach out to that lodge and join it.

The same idea of regular engagement also applies to other social media platforms.  If your lodge has an Instagram page, make sure you post often enough that followers and others who look for information about your community will find regular content.  On any social media that uses hashtags, be sure to include the hashtag for your town or city so that people looking for something in that area can find you.

The second step to making your lodge discoverable is to make sure your building is identifiable.  Would people know it’s an Odd Fellows Lodge just looking at it from the outside?  If they did know it was an Odd Fellows Lodge, would they know how to contact someone in that lodge to get an application to join?  Make sure your hall is well-marked and that contact information is readily available.  You could put a sign on the side of the building with your lodge’s name and an email address or website.  You could also put up a box to hold fliers and make sure it’s always filled with fliers that have current contact information about your lodge.  As much as possible, make sure the exterior condition of your lodge hall is good and inviting.  Yes, we care mostly about what goes on in the lodge hall, but the public never sees that; they only see the outside.  If your building looks shabby and the entrance is not clearly marked, potential members will not be able to find you and ask about joining the lodge.  Buildings should be clean, well-lit, and accessible from the outside.  Just because members know when and where to enter the building doesn’t mean the general public knows that.

If your building has a sign on it, make sure the sign is clean and functional.  An old, broken, dingy sign tells the public that the lodge either no longer meets there or doesn’t care if anyone knows about it.  A clean, functional sign gives the opposite impression.  Pick up any trash that accumulates around the building on a regular basis and make sure it stays clean and inviting.  The care we give our buildings is often the first impression the public gets of our Order.

The third way to make your lodge discoverable is to interact with your community.  Join your local Chamber of Commerce or community association.  Meet with other businesses in your town and participate in any town events they have.  Visit town council meetings and give a short presentation about your lodge during their open comment time at the end of the meeting.  Develop relationships with the press and other influencers/communicators in your town by sending out regular press releases for activities your lodge is doing.  The results of such regular communication may not become apparent at first; it may take repeated press releases before a regular relationship is established with members of the press but it’s important to keep trying.  The more people see something repeated, the more important they will think it is, and you want people to think of your lodge as important.

Networking with other fraternal groups in your area is another way to make the lodge discoverable.  Members of one group are more likely to join a second group than the general public.  A collaborative project with other fraternal and civic groups is a great way to make connections that can help raise the profile of your lodge and attract new members. The Eastern Star chapter in Kennewick, WA organized a Fraternal Fair where they partnered with other fraternal and civic groups and invited the public to a big meeting of those groups to show off their collections of fraternal items.

Lodges have, for too long, toiled away in obscurity, desperately wanting members but not knowing how to make the connections that will lead those new members in to them.  Hopefully, with some of the ideas outlined here, those connections can be made and lodges can start down the path of growth once again.

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