The reason most organisers stay on Meetup is not loyalty. It is the members list. You have spent years building an audience there, you cannot export it, and leaving feels like starting from zero.
That fear is reasonable and slightly overstated. Your club is not the eight hundred people on the roster. It is the thirty who actually come, and those thirty are portable.
Work out what you are actually moving
Before anything else, look at attendance for the last six months and count the distinct people who showed up more than once. That number is your club. Everyone else is a follower, and followers were never yours to begin with.
Organisers who do this are usually relieved. Moving thirty engaged people is a very different project from moving eight hundred names, and the thirty will follow you because they come for the group, not the platform.
Do not announce a migration
Migrations sound like work the member has to do. Nobody volunteers for that. What works is announcing a home: somewhere the club now lives, with the schedule and everything else in it.
Set the new space up fully first. An empty destination is the fastest way to lose people who were willing to follow.
The four-step move
1. Build it before you mention it
Schedule in, next three events posted, description written, photos up. When someone arrives it should look like the club already lives there, because it does.
2. Tell the regulars in person
At the next event, out loud, with the reason. Your thirty regulars are the whole migration. Ask them there and then to join, while you are standing in front of them.
3. Run both for a season
Keep listing events on the old platform, with the new home in every description. You lose nothing by overlapping, and you keep the discovery you were paying for anyway.
4. Move the value, not just the events
Put the things that only exist in the new place: the full calendar, the member directory, the resources, the group chat. People follow what they cannot get elsewhere.
Get the Club Migration Plan
A four-week plan to move your club to its own home without losing the people who actually come. Free, one page.
Say the reason out loud
Organisers tend to be vague about why they are moving, which makes it sound arbitrary. Be specific instead. Costs went up. The club has no way to reach its own members. You want a real membership rather than an RSVP list. You want to own the club you built.
Members respond to a reason. Most of them have watched the same platform get worse and will recognise every word of it.
What you gain that you could not have before
- A member list your club owns and can take anywhere
- Messages that reach everyone who opted in, not a fraction of a feed
- Membership tiers and dues, if your club wants them, rather than only event RSVPs
- Resources, a directory, and a real home between events
- One price for the club instead of a per-organiser subscription
Expect to lose some names, and be fine with it
You will not move everyone, and you should not try. The people who never came were never part of the club, and carrying them was costing you a monthly fee for the privilege of a number on a page.
Your club is not the eight hundred on the roster. It is the thirty who come, and they will follow you.
Where Kannect fits
Kannect gives a club its own home for events, members, dues, and messaging, plus a public page on Kannect Discover so new people can still find you. Your club owns its member data. Announcements reach every member who opted in, with no boost to buy.
Members get it in the Kannect Community Hub app, which also holds the other communities they belong to, so it is an app they keep rather than one they delete after an event. Plans start at $23 a month billed yearly for the whole club, not per organiser. If you want the direct comparison, we wrote Kannect vs Meetup honestly, including where Meetup is still the better choice.
Move your club in four weeks
What to build first, what to say to the regulars, and how long to run both. We’ll send it now.