Silver or higher membership required for member discounts

I've been given feedback that the membership department is gathering response to this announcement - so make your voices heard no or never!

I sent them a note with my thoughts... ;o)

Aside from the registration discount issue, I also noticed the education packages for the Silver, Gold and Platinum levels, and of course none for those lowly "Organizational" folks (what does "Organizational Member" even mean?). Some of the webinars look interesting, but they are too expensive for me as an individual. I suspect many larger firms don't bother with them either - the giant firm I used to work for has their own education program. So, I'm thinking that part of the USGBC MoMoney strategy is to force the purchase of the webinars by including them as a 'benefit'.

I get that the USGBC needs money in these trying times, but so do the rest of us, especially the small firms! Insulting the small firms with this change in fee structure while presenting it as 'more choices' is just wrong. It is hindering our ability to function as viable LEED Consulants. Not very smart for the future of the USGBC to devalue their base.

Sent a message, got the survey, filled it in (after taking a deep breath to I would respond calmly), and it won't submit or close out. So, I copied it all into a Word doc to save the questions and my answers and sent a note to the survey contact.

So, forewarning for the rest of you if you sent a note and got a survey.

Peggy - I'm sorry that the survey wasn't working for you - I'll reach out directly in order to collect your comments.

Survey didn't work for me either. I got an error when trying to "Finish".

I first sent an email to the membership address. Then they asked me to complete the survey. The wording in the e-mail seemed to imply my opinion would only be considered based on my survey response. "Please complete so that Member Services will be able to view and review your comments regarding the New Membership structure."

Why can't Member Service view and review my comments from the email? Why do I have to say if I'm renewing or not in the first question to participate in the survey?

"Number 5 is alive."

The certification policy manual linked through LEED Online isn't updated to reflect this change.... It just says "members" get to register for the discount at $900... which is now untrue.

I realize this thread is stale, but I'd like to know how other small firms are dealing with this... we need to renew by the end of this month, and my small firm is in the same boat with other commenters above (Hernando, Karen, Peggy, et al). Has anyone considered not renewing their USGBC memberships, rather than maintaining an Organizational membership? We're struggling to afford the $1500 fee for Silver membership. The certification fee discounts were by far the biggest membership benefit, so without that the Organizational level just doesn't do much for us. With the number of projects we typically register in a year, I'm not sure the Silver level is worth it right now.

Has anyone had any luck working out a solution with membership support, as Sarah Karle suggested in her 9/20/12 post above?

Hello - I was wondering what folks are doing with their membership renewals as well. Nope, no chance of 'working out a solution' with HQ. It is what it is. I just renewed at the 'organizational' level so I can vote no on LEED v4 ;o).

I expect membership is still dropping, but I also doubt that they will realize how much good will they've blown with this membership structure change and the deafening silence that followed after people complained. Sad.

Since money seems to be the driver these days, opening up individual memberships would probably generate additional income as well as re-generate some good will.

I represent another small LEED consulting firm that like most of you before in the thread, cannot understand how this new structure does anything but benefit large corporations and generate more revenue for the USGBC for less apparent service.

We too were early adopters of green building programs and have done more than our share of marketing on LEED's behalf. We too basically pass through the certification fees and will get no benefit from paying a higher membership to secure them. We too have struggled all along to feel like an acknowledged partner and valued member of the USGBC, despite the consensus driven membership organization rhetoric.

When the new fees were announced, we were confused about why the USGBC would use a sponsorship model for membership. With sponsorship, more dollars buys you more access and PR. Then when we got to the part about "timely" customer service or lack thereof, we were incensed to realize that is exactly what is happening. More dollars overtly buys you a quicker response, and I think we could be forgiven in this model for thinking, maybe a better or more beneficial response by virtue of dedicated higher level personnel than a lesser member might receive.

Like you, we can't compete on this level. Though we have been told by the USGBC directly that we produce a "large" volume of LEED projects even as compared to much larger firms and that they want only to support our efforts to do even more, we are only a 4 person firm. Their actions are speaking louder than their words.

We have been getting bombarded with calls and emails from the USGBC about membership and when we will be re-upping. So many that it's getting really annoying. Now reading this thread, I'm wondering if they are calling incessantly to find out when or simply if we're going to renew.

This month we face the same decision, so my question is to those of you who have decided not to renew or not to renew at the Silver level for the sake of the cert fees. How is that working for you? Are you finding yourselves at a real disadvantage or is it simply business as usual? Are your larger competitors who say they do LEED but don't live and breathe it like us cutting into your market share?

From those of you who have started down this road, what would you advise the rest of us?

We have also been getting a lot of messages from the USGBC about membership renewal. I suspect that many smaller firms will not be able to pay the increased fees for the reasons stated above. The USGBC membership will now probably change to consist of a smaller number of large firms. The USGBC will then need to increase the fees again to make up for the smaller membership, which will accelerate the trend further. This will affect the breadth of the LEED constituency and ability of the USGBC to claim that it is representative of the Green Building movement. A sad state of affairs.