How to initialize a list to 0 or a string? : I have a list and I want to check if it's null then handle it properly

      public List<Entitys.Member> GetALLMembers()
        {            
            List<Models.EF_Model.Member> list = new Models.CRUD.Member().Get_AllMemeberRecords();
            //this is null and it throws exception => list
            List<Entitys.Member> ListMember = new List<Entitys.Member>();
            if (list!=null)
            {
                foreach (var item in list)
                {
                    ListMember.Add(new Entitys.Member()
                    {
                        //doing sth
                    });
                }
            return ListMember;
            }
            else
            {
                return()
            }
        }

want to initialize it to sth or a string and then in my controller throw a message

 how can I initialize a List in this way?
