Remember, it is ultimately up to you what kind of organization you want to build.
In the end, the bottleneck will almost always be the amount of quality club members, and that will ultimately be bottle-necked by the club leaders. Opportunities (bounties, hackathons, token delegation, etc) are pretty much only helpful for members who have enough skills and knowhow to carry them out. Only the most engaged members who've done the learning are going to be able to commit to stuff like this and not suck at it. How about the rest?
Connections to other clubs through BAF can totally be helpful for building engagement, but it still requires members to show up to these (probably virtual) events. The "just interested" person who's club shopping will have a like 5 other "come join us later this week" events from the other clubs/other extracurriculars they're interested in. That said, Inter-club relations can have a lot of value and it's a separate topic we cover in another chapter.
Money is only helpful up to a certain point - money to go to a conference is great, but it will only cost as much as there club members engaged enough to want to commit to going on a trip like that - any more money won't really help. Money for social events is exactly the same - you'll only buy as many bubble teas as people who show up. BAF can cover that.
So your challenge as a small, nascent club (majority of clubs around the world) is for your leaders to be charismatic enough to turn the "just interested" members committed to your club. This is really just a sales problem - If you do not make them "want" to be part of it from the first time they meet the club, they will choose another club that does that.
This is the role of the club leader. You need to have enough focus on each and every individual member in your club. In order to overcome the shortage of self-motivated focused people like yourself, this is the most time-consuming yet rewarding strategy considering the fact it can pretty much only result in really high quality members long term to pass the baton to.
Every club member you train will become the future leader who trains more members. Once you get to 10 members, boom you got a personal development community sustained by peer-to-peer mentorship. Something that looks like big-little in a frat/sorority. This is not BAF promoting Greek life but we admit this whole trail of thought did fake us into realizing frats are onto something.
How can we help you at this stage? Since BAF can't really give boots-on-the-ground support, our means of helping clubs is more in form of money, opportunities, connections, and advising.
A core team is the beating heart of any organization. Consider it like building a startup: Who do you need to make this happen? Your club needs a leadership team, which usually consists of a President and Vice-President or Co-President. If you prefer a more traditional approach to building your core team, you will also need a Treasurer and Secretary. Some clubs may structure their organization more like a startup, with a President, COO, CTO, and supporting roles such as Head of Research.
It is strongly recommended that clubs have an advisory board, which typically consists of professors, alumni who have startups, or other club leaders. The advisory board will support and guide your every move, helping you get things done.
Core team & board recruiting checklist: