Three Simple Reflections to Level-up Your Practice

Since its charter in 1983, the Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club in Ontario, Canada had always been a high performer with significant impact in the community. However, it was not immune to the volunteer participation challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic forced on social purpose organizations. Additionally, in 2022, the club merged with another club in need of administrative and leadership support. Even though both clubs had the shared vision of humanitarian and community service, the merger meant having to bring together two different club cultures. At the time, the club experienced a sharp drop in member engagement; the Board of Directors quickly understood that it needed to rapidly pivot out of its traditional approach to operations.

Within the past five years, the Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club has reinvented itself to become known as a club with high member engagement and exemplary leadership. In this Engage feature, author Shaminda Perera reports on how the club managed to re-energize membership engagement and growth – and explains the Volunteer Experience Framework (and it’s three simple reflections) that the club used to make this change.