How to lose a member in 10 easy steps

1. Give them absolutely nothing in return for their time and money.

You deluged their Facebook feed with invitations to join your cause, and they responded by signing up. Tick! Your work is done.

2. Don't tell them anything about the valuable work your organisation is doing.

Keep it all to yourself. Shhhhhh.

3. After a long silence, flood their inbox with requests for money.

Smoke them out! Make them wade through an inbox full of your impersonal fundraising emails.

4.Ensure your lines of communications are inefficient.

Don't give them your email address. Make them fill out a 'contact request' form on your website. Then auto-reply with a promise to forward their query to the relevant staff - and don't. Eventually, they'll give up. Hopefully, they'll leave altogether.

5. Arbitrarily make decisions without consulting them at all.

Make it clear that this "membership" thing doesn't get them any privileges whatsoever.

6. Better yet, actively consult them and then don't do a single thing they suggest.

HAH! You're really sticking the knife in now.

7. Take away your membership coordinator.

Leave them feeling abandoned and used, and surely they'll finally leave.

8. Practice mission-drift.

Gradually shift your organisation's focus away from whatever your members are passionate about. So sneaky! Then they won't even be supporting the cause they originally signed up for, and with any luck they'll leave.

9. Cease to advocate for your cause.

You're already showing them you don't care, so you might as well fade from view altogether. That should stop 'em from renewing.

10. Focus on getting new members ahead of supporting your existing members.

This should squash and loyalists who still think they're special to you. As a bonus, you can squeeze money from the newbies. If you get sick of them too, start again at Step 1.