We take it for granted today that acquiring and keeping
Illinois Farm Bureau (IFB) members is vital to the continued well being of our
organization. Just last week I worked on a graphic for the IFB Board that shows
the annual membership breakdown for each district. Today we pay close attention
to the ups and downs of membership, but in the early days you couldn’t even be
a member of Illinois Farm Bureau. Individual membership in IFB wasn’t started
until 1919 – a full three years after the organization was founded. Before
that only the county organizations were the actual “members” of IFB. Probably no other membership drive has been
more strategic and vital to our existence than that first one in 1919. Vice-President
Jacob Sailors was appointed to the task of recruiting members. Of the 59
counties who were part of Illinois Farm Bureau in those early days Mr. Sailors
oversaw the membership drives in 32 counties. He hired individuals for $10 a
day plus expenses to solicit membership. By the end of the 1919 he had some pretty
impressive numbers. In the 32 counties he was directly responsible for membership
went from zero to 40,551. In the remaining 27 counties where Jacob was not
directly involved total membership was only 6,549. Vice-President Sailors worked his membership
drive magic in just over half of the counties but was directly responsible for
86% of the new members. In today’s dollars Jacob Sailors infused the young
organization with $3.45 million. A great start to address the taxation,
legislation, and transportation issues of the day. Thank you Jacob Sailor for
believing in our organization and starting us out on a solid financial
foundation. With your help we were poised to accomplish great things well into
the next century.
Intro page from a 1930s Illinois Farm Bureau
Membership Drive book.
