Membership growth is top of mind for board members to ensure sustainability of an association. Is it always in the best interest of the association to grow? Does your board understand the reasons for growth, the implications of that growth and the resources necessary to sustain that growth? All [...]
Are you ready for your board meeting? Have you read the agenda and the supporting documents? Are there items that you want to discuss that don’t appear on the agenda? If not, then how do you get them on the agenda? All of the above are very good, and [...]
Being a board member is a significant responsibility and with that must come a commitment to be present and participate in board meetings. Easy to say, hard to do for some. Board meetings can be intimidating for some and getting involved isn’t always easy. You might not be comfortable [...]
I have had the good fortune to attend some professional development sessions over the last few months and feel as though I have come away with a few gems of information that will not only allow me to do my job better, but also help me give advice to [...]
Recently I had the good fortune of attending an international convention with one of our association management clients in Las Vegas. The convention had many educational sessions geared towards our client’s industry and one of those was a session on optimizing digital marketing. Although it was tailored to our [...]
Recently, I attended the Canadian Society of Association Executives (CSAE) annual conference in Niagara Falls. A session on “Today’s Missing Link for Explosive Growth” put on by Ed Rigsbee, author of the book “The ROI of Membership,” made me think about how we frame the features and benefits of [...]
How do your members measure value? How do you sell value to your members? A question that comes up often when recruiting members is the phrase “what’s in it for me?” Society is constantly measuring value and the association world is no different. So what is the answer? In [...]
The role of an association’s board of directors (board) has two main objectives. The primary is to be the strategic thinkers that provide direction to the association members they represent. The mission of the association drives the strategy and decision-making process, therefore the board needs to always relate their [...]
What is the role of the board chair in creating an effectively run association? As an association management company (AMC) we work with many different associations and encourage each to streamline their board meetings to help the board do its primary job of thinking strategically versus operationally. Achieving this [...]
I recently attended a board professional development session with board members from an association that we manage and I found it a very worthwhile session for both myself and for the board members. It very clearly outlined the roles of, and the relationship between, the board members versus the [...]