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Illinois Farm Bureau implementing OMS roadmap

The chief strategy officer of the Illinois Farm Bureau (IFB) says the organization is beginning to implement changes identified in its Organizational Member Strategy (OMS).

Mark Gebhards tells Brownfield it’s a product of a multi-year process of surveys and subcommittees.

“The why I think in just a general sense is declining demographic numbers, declining farmer numbers, different types of members.”  He says, “We have a lot more people involved in specialty crop production that want to be a part of the organization, and then also where can we achieve some operational efficiencies?”

He says the OMS roadmap contains twenty-five focus points, including increased support for local county farm bureaus.

“We’re also looking from a pilot standpoint of can we provide multi-county staffing as we’ve kind of referred to it.”  He says, “A subject matter expert, let’s say on local government, that might work, you know, in five or six counties.”

Gebhards says increasing IFB’s outreach is among the top priorities.

“And that’s one of the things we heard from these people that came in as a part of these subcommittees is we really aren’t real sure what Farm Bureau exactly does in all areas.”  He says, “I think we have to up our game, if you will, a little bit there.”

Gebhards says the strategy also calls for redefining member classifications to “Voting” and “Supporting” members to reduce confusion amongst prospective members.  He says that’s expected to be a proposed bylaw change at IFB’s annual meeting in 2025. 

AUDIO: Mark Gebhards – Illinois Farm Bureau