We charge $20 for a family membership.
We also host an annual fly-in lunch with first class food as our major fundraiser. When we spent too much on a big party a few years ago, we held a catered dinner with a silent auction of donated goods and made a very good profit. If your life members are doers and contributors rather than sitters and takers, they can have a positive impact on chapter activities such as Young Eagles, fly-ins, facility maintenance, chapter parties and other fund raisers. But I have been in a chapter where the ratio of takers to doers was too high. One chapter had Saturday breakfast meetings that, with volunteer shopping, cooking and cleaning, regularily turned a modest profit.
The key to success, financially as well as organizationally, as in most organizations, is to get people to participate.
BJC