This past year, Landscape Ontario’s membership team has been working hard to level up. We’ve taken on some big projects to improve the infrastructure we use to serve our members. The biggest (and most challenging) upgrade this year came from moving to Salesforce as our Association Management Software (AMS). We’ve migrated our membership database from legacy software to a powerful new platform that will form the foundation of our membership engagement going forward. There’s still plenty of work ahead to optimize and enhance our AMS, but it already includes useful functions that weren’t available before.

We also improved our understanding of the member experience through a comprehensive membership engagement survey and industry trends report. Now is not an easy time to be a landscaper, but our members appreciate LO and see the value their association brings. Despite high levels of member satisfaction, economic pressures had a negative influence on our membership numbers, which declined over the past year. A new membership recruitment campaign is in the works to counter this trend by increasing the flow of new members into LO. A Chapter Engagement Committee was struck to create new lines of communication between the Chapters, including two Chapter Leadership Summits. All of these projects have given your membership team the tools and information we need to build our membership and help our members succeed in the year to come.

New member portal and management software

This is an exciting time to be a member of Landscape Ontario (LO). Your board of directors has committed to an ambitious and necessary evolution of the association’s technology. A big part of that is our new, Salesforce-based Association Management Software and Wordpress-powered member portal.

Salesforce brings new potential for automation and powerful data analysis tools that will allow the membership team to serve members better and with greater efficiency. Of course, migrating our database from legacy software to Salesforce is a challenging process. The team has worked diligently to clean up our records. In the summer, two two student employees called and updated 1,000 member records. Through the fall and winter, the whole team has worked together to assist members during our busiest renewal season.

Many of these renewals were done using our brand new member portal at members.landscapeontario.com. The portal is still in its early stages, but it already boasts some entirely new options for LO members. For the first time, members can download membership renewal invoices, update their company roster, and download their membership certificates online. All of these basic functions used to require action from our staff, but they are now available instantly, 24-7 through the member portal. This is just the beginning. We will be building more features into the portal in the coming year, along with tips and instructional resources to help our members take full advantage of it. We’re early on in a three-year road map for change, but we’re already seeing some benefits from this change.

Member engagement survey

In early 2024, we reached out to our members with a survey to gauge their engagement with Landscape Ontario. We got an excellent response rate of more than 10% of the membership. The results were encouraging. Overall, engagement is strong, with 91% of respondents indicating that they would renew their membership, 98% felt they were more informed because of their Landscape Ontario membership, 78% had attended an LO event in the past year and 63% had participated in the association’s professional development programs. This all indicates that the core membership sees the value that Landscape Ontario provides their businesses and the horticulture trades as a whole.

It’s also worth noting that the number one benefit identified by our members is… each other. Networking opportunities was voted as the most valuable benefit of LO membership, coming in just above access to information and professional development. The Landscape Ontario community is second to none, so it should come as no surprise that you, the members, are the most compelling reason to join the association.

Membership size and recruitment

Along with the membership engagement survey, LO commissioned an industry trends report. That report showed that the landscaping industry had seen tremendous growth during the COVID pandemic years, 2020 and 2021, but that growth dropped off sharply into 2022 and 2023. This coincides with high interest rates and a slowing of the economy. These trends have affected Landscape Ontario’s membership numbers as well. The association grew to new heights during the pandemic, but we have seen a correction over the past two years as our total membership comes back down to pre-pandemic levels.

With the strong engagement indicated by our member survey and the economic conditions affecting landscapers, we don’t believe the decline in membership is due to a lack of satisfaction. Many landscape business owners are reporting overall smaller project sizes, increased difficulty in closing projects, and less volume of leads coming in. These strong economic pressures are forcing many to make difficult financial decisions. Unfortunately, this includes the decision to maintain membership with Landscape Ontario.

In 2025, we will be pushing hard to recruit new members to Landscape Ontario. The membership committee is developing a multi-channel campaign including direct mail, digital advertising, partnering with our supplier members and leveraging our many outstanding events to connect with non-members. Even in today’s challenging environment, we continue to see new members coming in regularly, excited about the benefits of joining Landscape Ontario. This campaign will accelerate the pace of new applications to counter the attrition we’ve seen over the past year.
 

Member Type	2023	2024
Green Trade Member	1,808	1,655
Green Trade Sole Proprietor	129	164
Green Trade Supplier	548	493
Green Trade Chapter Supplier	485	449
Green Trade Introductory	56	58
Individual	95	80
Total Members	3,121	2,899

Chapter engagement

This year, we created a new committee: the Chapter Engagement Committee. This group includes the presidents of LO’s 10 Chapters, plus provincial board president and vice president, Ed Hansen and Lindsay Ross. Toronto Chapter President Jon Durzi stepped up to act as its chair. This group has worked together to revise the outdated policies and procedures that guide our Chapter boards and the staff who directly serve them. This process has brought greater clarity and cohesion to our staff and volunteer teams.

The Chapter Engagement Committee also planned two Chapter Leadership Summit events that brought together Chapter board members from across the province. The goal of these events was to stimulate knowledge sharing and to develop solutions to common challenges facing our Chapters. At the Chapter Leadership Fall Summit, attendees collaborated on and prioritized an action list to further improve areas like local member engagement, communication with Chapter volunteers, and encouraging new entrants into our dynamic Chapter boards.

Membership team

The team has evolved a little bit this year. Membership Admin Assistant Andrea Bianchi has been promoted internally to Executive Assistant to Joe Salemi. Gail Pope, a former Landscape Ontario intern will be stepping into Andrea’s shoes after Congress. Sponsorship Coordinator Shubham Kumar has left LO to pursue an exciting new career opportunity. His replacement will be hired in January 2025.

Evan Dickson, Membership Director - edickson@landscapeontario.com
Gail Pope, Membership Admin Assistant - gpope@landscapeontario.com
Justin Kole, Membership Engagement Specialist - jkole@landscapeontario.com
Karri Bylsma, Membership Event Specialist - kbylsma@landscapeontario.com
Lauralee Gonzalez, Membership Event Specialist - lgonzalez@landscapeontario.com
Jaleesa Rhoden, Membership Event Specialist - jrhoden@landscapeontario.com
New hire TBD, Sponsorship Coordinator