I am one of the organizers of a History Buffs Meet-Up Group in the Baltimore area. These meet up groups are a ready-made audience for your organization – you just have to invite them!

For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, meetup.com is a social networking site where people can join groups spanning a wide variety of interests. Myself, I am in two history groups, three music groups, a museum group, a book club, a dance group, a yoga group, and a couple of others. For each group, there is an organizer (sometimes multiple organizers, depending on the size of the group) who plans meet-ups and posts the details on the site for all group members to access. Group members can RSVP yes or no to each event. In short, it is a great way for people to meet others in their hometowns who enjoy their same interests and hobbies.

Our history group attended a walking tour with a local history museum recently. It was a great tour -two hours long and very educational. The guide had obviously spent a great deal of time preparing. We had three members of our history meet-up come for the tour. Without the three of us, the guide would have had only one other person in attendance – a volunteer from the museum. I was both disappointed that more people didn’t know about the tour and pleased that I had played a role in helping to increase his turn-out.

Since meet-ups are controlled by organizers, museums and organizations can’t just place all of their events on meetup.com willy-nilly. You can, however, reach out to the organizers of groups in your town and topic area. Introduce yourself, reveal what organization you are with, and offer to collaborate on a meet-up. Offer a group discount or a special behind-the-scenes tour to sweeten the pot. Provide a great first experience to the meet-up group, and you could build repeat business and positive word-of-mouth, which, of course, could lead to long-standing relationships with the group members. They could even become volunteers and donors! All at a very small (if any) cost to you!

Here is the link to meetup.com

Post below if you are in the Baltimore/Washington area and would like to organize an outing with my history meet-up!