More on the SGI padding its membership rolls

SGI may be effective in recruiting new members, but it does not hang on to them well. A few years back, SGI had a "membership card" campaign. Anyone remember that? There was great pressure to get everyone you knew to fill out a membership card. For example, if your spouse did not chant, or other family members or your friends, you were supposed to get them to fill out a membership card. It didn't matter that they didn't practice, just so long as they were supportive of SGI. So many people got lots of people to join the organization without really joining it. Danny Nagashima led this campaign. He said that President Ikeda was upset about the membership numbers here in the U.S. So many membership cards were filled out (without anyone really joining) and, lo and behold, the membership numbers increased tremendously. So SGI and Danny were very happy. We were all told how we would get great benefit if we participated in this campaign. It was really strange! I actually was quite embarrassed that SGI was doing such a thing. Source

So was I - and outraged. This, in fact, was one of the factors that played heavily into my decision to leave SGI.