I have assembled a list of 23 organizations with more than 365,000
members, plus the American Legion, which has less than 300,000 members
but a long history of providing perks for members. Please be aware
that there are certainly other groups that qualify but are not on the
list, most likely because they do not report their membership numbers.
Organizations are not required to report membership, and if they do
not, I did not presume to guess how many members they had.
Some of the organizations, such as Narcotics Anonymous and the YMCA,
are not what would be traditionally called "affinity groups," but they
do provide special offers and discounts for members. I did not include
religious groups or labor unions. They are special-interest groups
that could also qualify as affinity groups in some circumstances, but
because of their specialized purpose, I opted not to classify them as
affinity groups. If you want a list of the largest labor unions or
religious organizations, I can provide that.
Most of the information below is taken from the Encyclopedia of
Associations, 2003 edition. This is a useful compendium that contains
information on more than 20,000 groups. There are a number of
references to large groups that I did not think would fall under the
"affinity group" label. However, if you are interested in finding
associations with large membership bases, this three-volume series is
worth purchasing. Volumes 1 and 2 contain the association data,
including contact names and addresses, the association's mission, and
a variety of other facts, while Volume 3 is an index that allows you
to search by association name or by category. You can buy these
volumes for $25 to $60 apiece if you look carefully online, or you can
find them at many libraries. I collected my data at the local library.
Here is the data:
Organization Acronym Web site Membership
YMCA of the U.S.A. www.ymca.net/ 13,509,199
International Association
for Medical Assistance
to Travellers IAMAT www.iamat.org/ 9,500,000
Boy Scouts of America www.scouting.org 5,363,593
National Wildlife Federation www.nwf.org/ 4,400,000
Girl Scouts of the USA www.girlscouts.org 3,500,000
Boys and Girls Clubs of America www.bgca.org/ 3,500,000
Mothers Against Drunk Driving MADD www.madd.org/home/ 3,200,000
Alcoholics Anonymous AA www.aa.org/ 2,000,000-plus
Humane Society of the United States www.hsus.org/ 1,750,000
Lions Clubs www.lionsclubs.org/ 1,400,000
Rotary International www.rotary.org/ 1,178,659
Nature Conservancy nature.org/ 1,000,000
People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals PETA www.peta.org/ 750,000
American Society
for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals ASPCA www.aspca.org/ 672,000
Mature Outlook 600,000
National Association
of Investors Corp. NAIC www.better-investing.org 550,000
United Seniors www.unitedseniors.org 550,000
60 Plus www.60plus.org/ 500,000
Narcotics Anonymous NA www.na.org/ 500,000
Family Research Council FRC www.frc.org/ 450,000
National Institute for
Automotive Service
Excellence ASE www.iatn.net/ase/ 400,000
Aircraft Owners and
Pilots Association AOPA www.aopa.org/ 365,000
American Legion www.legion.org/ 287,945
I hope this information helps you.
V |
Clarification of Answer by
vercingatorix-ga
on
24 Aug 2005 18:19 PDT
I'll address your concerns one at a time.
First, there aren't that many organizations with more than 1 million
members, at least not that make their membership numbers public. If
you're looking for 20 organizations beyond the ones you already have,
I don't think you'll find them.
Second, the YMCA, the Boy Scouts, MADD, Iamat, and the others all
offer perks to members. For YMCA and the Scouts, most such deals are
local, not national. And I hesitate to mention this, but you never
mentioned anything about hotels or any specific consumer benefits when
you asked your question. You wanted member benefit programs that
offered discounts, and all of the groups on the list offer those in
one form or another. All of the organizations can get you consumer
benefits like discounts at retailers or restaurants or bargains on
care rentals or tax services, etc. For the most part, these benefits
are not on a national scale.
If you're looking for organizations with a million or more members
that offer hotel discounts to those members, there aren't many
choices. Large service organizations like Rotary sponsor such perks as
credit cards. If you clarify the particular kind of perks you are
seeking, I can pare down the list. But I'm afraid there are not likely
to be 20 organizations that meet your specs.
V
|
