Shriners face shrinking ranks

BALTIMORE — Spend a few minutes around the Shriners and it’s easy to be charmed by the men in tasseled fezzes and their honking collection of miniature cars, camels and clowns.

As 20,000 Shriners and their families flooded Baltimore for their annual convention this week, much of the attention focused on a parade of 3,000 Shriners, many dressed as clowns, and a politically charged decision yesterday not to move Canada’s only Shriners hospital from Montreal to London, Ontario.

But the international fraternal organization that runs 22 charitable children’s hospitals in North America has another, less-public concern: They’re not getting any younger, and membership is dropping.

“We knew this was coming,” said Bob Hancock, 69, of Dayton, Ohio. “Young people have so much available to them through the Internet and television, and they’re so busy with their families, it’s really hard to get them to join.”

The group has a North American membership of 430,000, but the average age is 62 — and the Shriners had 1 million members 25 years ago. These days, the most common colors beneath the maroon fezzes of the men strolling through Baltimore’s Inner Harbor are silver and gray.

These groups can become smaller and still survive, but they have to attract younger people to membership in the long run, said Theda Skocpol, a Harvard sociology professor and researcher on American voluntary associations.

In general, interest in fraternal groups has dropped since the 1960s, when Americans began to distance themselves from organizations perceived to be segregated by race and sex.

To gain members, many fraternal groups, including the Shriners, are trying to demystify what they do, simplifying the process to join and making meeting schedules that fit into busy lives.

To become a Shriner, a man must first be a high-level Mason — and some states have condensed the process to become a Mason into one day.

The Shriners’ brass also has set up a “future of the Shriners committee” to find ways to draw in younger members.

“That’s probably one of our number one concerns — new membership,” said Mike Andrews, the Shriners corporate director of public relations.

Efforts to diffuse the image of an elite secret society have created “some slight success in attracting younger members,” Miss Skocpol said. “But they have a long way to go.”

The Shriners are worried, but only up to a point. Membership in the group is often a family affair, with generation after generation following their fathers into the fold.

Shriners also point to their healthy hospital endowment fund — about $7 billion — and the recognition that their festive charity work gets in the press and local communities.

Mr. Hancock said his father, grandfather and great-grandfather all were Masons. His sons, ages 42 and 44, also are members.

“We’re going to be OK,” he said. “We’re raising 10 times the amount of money for our hospitals, with only half the members we once had.”

Another Shriner, John Goff, 73, of Melbourne, Fla., said that despite declining numbers, there is only one acceptable Shriners goal: worldwide membership.

“The Masonic mission is to unite the world,” Mr. Goff said. “We’ll never get there, but that’s what we want. If every man was a Mason, we’d have a much better world.”