Every year we survey members to gain insight into their perceptions of CIRA’s membership. Their feedback helps us track the overall health of CIRA membership, and identify any areas of concern. Here are the highlights of what we heard:
- Majority of members are satisfied with their membership
- 70% of members say they signed up to stay informed about CIRA and the .CA domain
- 74% of members have a positive impression of CIRA
- More say they know a lot about what we do at CIRA and for Canada’s internet
- Many continue to feel their membership is valuable to them
- Most of the time we meet members’ expectations
This is very valuable insight from members and presents opportunities for us to focus our work to do better. Keep reading for further analysis of the survey results.
Member satisfaction score
CIRA Member satisfaction remains stable over the last four years and is back to pre-pandemic norms after seeing a slight bump in 2020. This score is an average of overall member satisfaction and member expectations of their experiences. More on those numbers further down.
Top reasons for joining
We asked members to select their main reasons for becoming a CIRA member. The top five answers include:
These top reasons are unchanged from 2023.
On a positive note:
Overall satisfaction
Members’ overall satisfaction with CIRA membership continues to rise at 80%, inching back to pre-pandemic norms. Most members (54%) are at least somewhat satisfied with their membership and one-quarter (26%) are strongly satisfied.
Familiarity with CIRA
Members are relatively familiar with CIRA but most only know a little about our role, activities and operations. However, members who know a lot about CIRA are on the rise!
We want CIRA members to be brand ambassadors and influencers within their networks. The more members know about CIRA’s activities, products and services and how that relates to our mission—and to them—the better equipped they will be to share our great work with others.
Overall impression of CIRA
A new question added to the survey last year asked for members’ overall impression of CIRA in the context of our impact on the internet in Canada. Most members (74%) have a positive impression and very few (4%) have a negative impression of CIRA.
Consistent with last year’s response, this is encouraging and signals that we’re on the right path. We’re glad to hear that members are supportive of our mission to build a trusted internet for Canadians—this inspires us to continue to work hard to improve Canada’s internet.
Where we have work to do:
Value of membership
Although many members continue to say that their membership in CIRA is valuable to them, we saw a minor increase in those who feel neutral about the value of membership compared to last year. Very few continue to say that it is not valuable.
Obviously, we’d like to see fewer members who feel neutral about the value of membership and more who feel it is valuable to them. Through recent member feedback and engagement, we now better understand what motivates current and future members and how CIRA can be more relevant to them. We will be focusing on moving this metric into the positive over the coming year. Stay tuned!
Member expectations related to their experiences
Most members say that their experiences meet their expectations in terms of matching their initial expectations. This, too, has been consistent over time.
Although this is not a bad place to be as a member-based organization, this certainly motivates us to exceed expectations more often.
Being more relevant to members
We asked members if they had any advice for us on how to best focus our energy and resources to be more relevant to them. We saw a minor decline this year (which is a good thing!), however, similar to last year, nearly 60% of members still say they don’t know!
It’s nice to see the response showing a decline, meaning more members over time have opinions on where we should focus. Looks like we need another survey or focus group to really unpack what members want!
Awareness of membership and interest in joining
In a separate survey we asked .CA domain name holders who are not members if they are aware that they’re eligible to apply for CIRA membership. Most respondents (71%) say that they are unaware that they’re eligible and one-third expressed an interest in joining as a member, but relatively few (7%) are strongly interested.
This is another area we will focus on in the coming year as we work to increase value for members; in turn, making membership more appealing to potential members by piquing their interest as we raise awareness of the opportunity to join.
Demographics of respondents
CIRA’s membership is dominated by Ontario-based men who are mostly 60+ years old; this has remained largely unchanged over the years.
Again, the geographic location is not surprising; it is simply a reflection of the population across Canada. The reporting on gender and age certainly continues to have our attention. We are committed to addressing this to achieve a better balance that is more reflective of Canada’s age and gender diversity.
What’s next?
If you’re a member, thank you for participating in our survey and providing your honest opinions and perspectives—keep your feedback coming! The more you share with us the better we can make CIRA membership work for you. As a member, you’ve taken steps to be more involved in the development of Canada’s internet. Take your involvement to an even higher level and be our brand champions—encourage those in your network to think of .CA first for their online domain and help us grow and diversify our membership so that it represents all Canadians.
If you’re not a member and have a .CA domain name—become one! Don’t have a .CA domain name? What are you waiting for—register yours today.
About CIRA membership
CIRA is a member-based organization that values the input of its members and their contributions to enabling a trusted internet. Having a .CA domain name and being a CIRA member supports the great work we do for Canada’s internet.
Membership is free and only open to .CA domain name holders. It remains active so long as your domain remains registered—there’s no additional renewal process beyond renewing your .CA domain name!
As the Manager of Membership Relations at CIRA, Julie manages the development, planning and delivery of CIRA’s membership and Member-related activities and engagement. She strives to create opportunities for Members and consumers, and partners to share, connect, and learn and get the most out of their relationship with CIRA.
