Over the coming weeks we will continue to announce our new MemberWise Ambassadors who will champion their particular area of expertise. This week we introduce MemberWise Ambassador (New Member Acquisition), Ian Oxley, Head of Membership Recruitment at the National Trust.

Ian works with a Membership Team of around 30 professionals at their headquarters in Swindon, however nationwide there are 1,000 professionals contributing at over 300 sites across the country. Currently the organisation has over 5.5 million members and is the second largest membership body in the UK.

Ian has worked for the trust for almost 20 years and he explains how he fell into membership:

“After a period travelling around southern Africa in my early 30s I came back to the UK looking for a job in the charitable / heritage / nature sector which luckily coincided with the perfect vacancy coming up at the National Trust.”

“I am responsible for defining, agreeing and delivering the National Trust membership recruitment plan and programme to achieve the ambitious long term growth plans for income.  Membership is the National Trust’s most important income stream and ongoing support is critical to the organisation’s long term viability.”

“Right now and for the foreseeable future, the very real challenge will be dealing with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and growing National Trust membership towards and beyond 6m members during what will be a difficult period for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.”

Ian has presented at the network’s recent conference, Membership Excellence 2019, and recently participated in an ‘In Conversation with…’ webinar during the COVID-19 lockdown. He is also a MemberWise mentor.

In his role as Ambassador (New Member Acquisition) he will champion the critical importance of new member acquisition (in alignment with existing member retention) to enable sustainable and long term growth.

In Ian’s spare time he is a huge music fan and he still manages to get to between 40 and 50 gigs per year, although he’s not quite managed that in 2020. Here’s hoping for a bounce back for live music in 2021…

We welcome Ian on board as MemberWise Ambassador (New Member Acquisition) and we look forward to championing the critical of acquiring more new members during this challenging period.