Tag Archive for: member ROI

The Member Outcome Gap™ (924 Words)

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When Leadership Assumptions About Member Value Become Strategy

Several years ago, I was sitting in the audience at a National Speakers Association meeting when leadership announced that the organization would be renamed “Platform.” I was surprised and disappointed, as were many of the members around me. A few months later, I asked a friend who had been serving on the board about the decision. His explanation was simple: “We thought the membership would like the change.”

Those words have stayed with me because they describe a problem that extends far beyond one organization or one decision. The board believed it was making a positive change for the organization and its members, but the membership at large had not been consulted through focus groups before the decision. The problem was not a lack of good intentions. The problem was contained in two words: We thought.

I call the strategic consequence The Member Outcome Gap™: the distance between the outcomes association leadership believes members value and the outcomes members actually consider important to their professional and economic success.

Board Experience Is Valuable, but It Is Not Member Research

Association boards are generally populated by successful people who care deeply about their profession, industry, and organization. Their knowledge and experience are precisely why their perspectives are valuable. However, serving on a board does not automatically make someone representative of the membership at large.

Every board member arrives with individual experiences, relationships, career circumstances, organizational interests, and personal biases. During strategic planning, those perspectives can easily become generalized. “This is what I am seeing” gradually becomes “This is what our members are experiencing,” and eventually becomes “This is what our members want.”

The first statement can be valuable strategic intelligence. The last statement requires considerably more evidence.

I recently participated in another association meeting in which the CEO acknowledged that there had not been enough time to complete planned member focus groups before important strategic decisions needed to be made. The board was therefore being asked to establish direction while knowing it did not have the member perspectives leadership had intended to collect. That situation raises a question every association board should consider: What fills the information vacuum when sufficient member intelligence is missing?

Usually, it is assumption.

Good Strategy Can Be Built on the Wrong Value Assumption

The consequences become more significant as the planning process continues. An incomplete understanding of member needs can create an Evidence Gap. Board members and executives naturally fill that gap with experience and assumptions. Those assumptions influence strategic priorities, which then determine budgets, staff assignments, programs, partnerships, and other organizational investments.

Staff can subsequently execute that strategy extremely well and still create less Member ROI than leadership expected. The problem was not execution. The organization may simply have been aiming its resources toward outcomes that members did not value as highly as leadership believed.

This is why strategic planning should not begin only with questions about what the association should do. Leadership also needs credible evidence about what members are trying to accomplish and what outcomes matter sufficiently to influence their professional, business, or economic success.

Value Is Determined by the Recipient

This idea is not new to my thinking. In Developing Strategic Alliances, I introduced the Relationship Bank and later the Relationship Value Update as ways of examining the value exchanged between alliance partners. One of the underlying principles is that creating what you believe should be valuable to another person does not necessarily create value for that person.

You can believe you have made a substantial Relationship Bank Deposit, but if the recipient places little value on what you provided, the deposit exists primarily in your mind. The recipient ultimately determines the value received.

The same principle applies to associations. Boards can approve strategies, staff can build programs, volunteers can contribute expertise, and substantial resources can be invested, but leadership cannot unilaterally declare that Member Value has been created. Members have the deciding vote on whether the outcomes produced are valuable to them.

Member-Informed Does Not Mean Member-Controlled

None of this suggests that boards should simply ask members what they want and then give it to them. That would replace leadership with polling. Boards have responsibilities members do not have and may see competitive threats, technological changes, regulatory developments, financial realities, or emerging opportunities that individual members cannot reasonably be expected to understand.

The distinction is between member-controlled strategy and member-informed strategy. Boards should exercise judgment, but that judgment should be informed by credible member intelligence whenever possible. Focus groups, member interviews, Member ROI research, behavioral information, segmentation, and other evidence help leadership understand member perspectives without surrendering its responsibility to lead.

The board’s responsibility is not to give members everything they say they want. It is to understand what members value well enough to make informed strategic decisions about what the association should do next.

Close the Gap Before You Execute the Strategy

The Member Outcome Gap™ can begin long before a program is launched or a strategic initiative reaches the membership. It can begin in the boardroom when an assumption about member value becomes accepted as fact.

That makes the quality of member intelligence a strategic issue, not merely a research function. Before committing significant organizational resources, leadership should be able to distinguish between what it knows about members, what it has reasonable evidence to believe, and what it is simply assuming.

Excellent execution cannot compensate for an incorrect understanding of member value. A board can develop a thoughtful strategy, staff can execute it exceptionally well, and the organization can still discover that it successfully delivered something members never valued nearly as much as leadership believed they would.

Strategic planning therefore should not begin only with “What should our association do?” It should begin with a sufficiently informed understanding of “What outcomes matter most to the members we exist to serve?” The board can then exercise its judgment about how the association should help create those outcomes.

When leadership’s assumptions and members’ actual priorities diverge, the distance between them is The Member Outcome Gap™.

Executive Q&A:

1. How can a board know whether its understanding of member priorities is accurate?

The board needs evidence beyond the experiences of individual directors. Member focus groups, interviews, Member ROI research, segmentation, behavioral data, and other forms of member intelligence can help leadership distinguish between what it knows and what it assumes. Board experience remains valuable, but personal experience should be treated as strategic input rather than automatically generalized to the membership at large.

2. Isn’t the board elected to represent the membership and make these decisions?

Yes. The board’s responsibility is to exercise judgment and provide strategic direction, not to put every decision to a membership vote. However, being elected by members does not automatically mean individual directors know what the broader membership currently values. Effective governance combines board judgment with credible member intelligence. The objective is member-informed strategy, not member-controlled strategy.

3. How much member research is enough before the board can confidently make strategic decisions?

There is no universal number. The appropriate level depends on the importance of the decision, the diversity of the membership, and the consequences of getting it wrong. A minor program adjustment may require little additional research, while a major strategic change could justify focus groups, interviews, segmentation, surveys, or other research. The greater the consequence of the decision, the stronger the evidence leadership should want before relying on assumptions about member value.

4. What should we do when we need to make a strategic decision before sufficient member research can be completed?

Make the information gap explicit. Separate what leadership knows from what it believes and what it is assuming. The board may still need to act, but it should understand the level of uncertainty surrounding the decision and determine whether the strategy can be tested, staged, or adjusted as additional member evidence becomes available. An acknowledged assumption can be managed; an assumption treated as fact is considerably more dangerous.

5. What happens when members say they want something that the board believes is strategically wrong for the organization?

Member-informed strategy does not require the board to follow every member preference. Members may not see emerging competitive threats, regulatory developments, technological changes, financial constraints, or longer-term strategic consequences that the board must consider. Member intelligence should inform board judgment rather than replace it. The board still has a responsibility to lead, including making decisions members may not initially understand or support when credible strategic evidence justifies doing so.

6. How do we prevent the most vocal members from becoming our definition of what the membership wants?

Deliberately broaden the sources of member intelligence. Highly engaged members, committee volunteers, conference attendees, and long-tenured members may be easier for leadership to hear, but they may not represent other important membership segments. Leadership should seek perspectives across career stages, engagement levels, organization sizes, specialties, geographic areas, and other relevant segments. The members closest to the association are valuable sources of information, but they should not automatically become proxies for everyone else.

7. Should member focus groups become part of every strategic planning process?

They can be extremely useful, particularly when leadership needs to understand why members perceive value as they do. However, focus groups are one source of intelligence rather than a universal requirement. Depending on the strategic question, interviews, surveys, behavioral data, Member ROI research, market information, or other methods may be more appropriate. The important discipline is ensuring that major assumptions about member value are supported by credible evidence rather than simply by opinions expressed around the board table.

8. How should the CEO respond when board members repeatedly say, “Our members want…” without supporting evidence?

Ask how they know. That is not a challenge to the director’s credibility; it is an important strategic discipline. The CEO can distinguish among direct evidence, personal observation, anecdotal conversations, and assumptions. A useful boardroom practice is to ask, “What evidence do we have that this represents the broader membership?” That simple question can prevent an individual perspective from unintentionally becoming an organizational conclusion.

9. How can we determine whether our existing strategic plan contains a Member Outcome Gap™?

Review the major strategic priorities and identify the member outcome each is intended to create. Then examine the evidence supporting the assumption that members actually value that outcome. If leadership can clearly explain what should become better for members, why that outcome matters to them, and what evidence supports that conclusion, the connection is reasonably strong. If the discussion repeatedly returns to programs, activities, participation, or leadership assumptions, there may be a gap between organizational strategy and member priorities.

10. What is the most important change a board can make to reduce The Member Outcome Gap™?

Create a discipline of separating evidence from assumption during strategic discussions. Board members should bring their experience, judgment, and industry knowledge to the table, but leadership should be explicit about what it knows from members and what it merely believes about them. Before significant resources are committed, the board should understand the outcomes members value and then exercise its judgment about how the association can best help create them. Excellent execution matters, but it cannot compensate for aiming at the wrong member outcome.

Member ROI Leakage™ (895 Words)

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Where Association Resources Disappear Before They Become Member Value

Association executives frequently ask whether their organizations have enough resources. Enough revenue, staff, volunteers, sponsors, board engagement, and time. Those are reasonable concerns, but there is another question that deserves equal attention: How much of what you already have is actually being converted into meaningful member value?

An association can have talented staff, active committees, a healthy balance sheet, committed volunteers, and strong industry relationships while still losing considerable value between organizational investment and member outcomes. Money gets spent and people stay busy, but some of the potential value never reaches the member.

I call this Member ROI Leakage™: the loss of potential member value that occurs when an association’s money, time, relationships, knowledge, opportunities, volunteer energy, or leadership attention are consumed without being effectively converted into meaningful member outcomes. This is not simply about waste or efficiency. It is about how well your association converts the resources it already possesses into Member ROI.

Activity Is Not the Same as Member Value

Associations are very good at measuring activity. We count registrations, attendees, webinars, committee meetings, website visits, certifications, sponsors, volunteers, and renewals. These numbers tell us what happened inside the association. They do not necessarily tell us what happened to the member because of the association.

A webinar with 500 attendees demonstrates activity. If members use what they learned to reduce costs, improve productivity, earn a promotion, avoid a regulatory problem, or identify a business opportunity, the webinar has helped create member outcomes. That distinction matters because organizations tend to manage what they measure. When activity becomes the primary evidence of success, leadership can continue investing resources without knowing how much meaningful value members actually receive.

Leakage Can Occur Almost Anywhere

Think of your association as a value-conversion system. Money, staff time, volunteer energy, expertise, relationships, partnerships, reputation, and executive attention enter the organization. Ideally, those resources emerge as professional and economic value for members. The problem is that some potential value can disappear along the way.

Legacy leakage occurs when resources continue flowing toward programs because of institutional history rather than current member value. This does not mean old programs are bad. A 30-year-old program may remain essential while a three-year-old program may already be delivering little value. Age is not the issue; current Member ROI is.

Governance leakage occurs when CEO attention, board time, and organizational momentum are consumed by unnecessary approvals, operational interference, prolonged consensus-building, or delayed decisions. Performance leakage occurs when weak staff or volunteer performance requires others to compensate and redirects leadership attention from opportunity creation to problem management.

Relationship leakage may be less visible but equally important. Associations possess enormous relationship capital among members, volunteers, partners, and industry experts. When the organization fails to connect people who could help one another, potential value remains dormant. Strategic leakage occurs when too many priorities spread money, staff time, and leadership attention so thinly that the association cannot adequately invest in the opportunities capable of creating significantly greater Member ROI.

Potential Value Has No ROI Until It Is Realized

The Value Creation Ecosystem™ expands the traditional association model in which the association creates benefits and members consume them. Value can move from association to member, member to member, partner to member, member to association, and association to the profession. This creates an enormous reservoir of potential value, but potential value and realized value are not the same thing.

A member willing to mentor another member represents potential value. Until the connection occurs, little value has been created. A strategic partner may possess expertise members urgently need, but there is limited Member ROI if members never gain access to it. A board may contain extraordinary industry knowledge, yet some of that potential disappears when its time is consumed discussing operational minutiae.

This suggests a useful way to think about the issue: Potential Member Value − Realized Member Value = Member ROI Leakage™. I am not suggesting this become a literal accounting formula. Rather, it should cause leadership to examine where valuable organizational capacity stops moving toward member outcomes.

Cost Alone Does Not Tell You Enough

When programs are reviewed, the discussion frequently centers on cost. How much staff time does the program require? What revenue does it generate? How many members participate? These are legitimate questions, but they do not tell us enough about value.

The more important question is: What meaningful member outcome does this investment produce? A $100,000 initiative producing substantial member value may be an excellent investment, while a $20,000 program producing almost no meaningful member outcome may be expensive at any price. Cost tells you what the association invested. It does not tell you what members received.

This is why Member ROI Leakage™ is not a cost-cutting strategy. Cutting expenses can actually increase leakage if leadership eliminates something that produces disproportionate member value. The objective is not simply to spend less. The objective is to convert better.

Conduct a Member ROI Leakage Audit

A practical starting point is to examine several of your association’s largest commitments of money, staff time, volunteer energy, relationships, and executive attention. For each, ask three questions: What resources are we investing? What meaningful member outcome is being created? Could these same resources create substantially greater member value somewhere else?

That third question is where the discussion becomes useful because it introduces opportunity cost. A program can be successful and still represent leakage if another use of the same resources could create substantially greater Member ROI. Members may enjoy a program, volunteers may feel attached to it, and staff may have invested years building it. Those considerations matter, but they should not automatically determine future resource allocation.

Better Conversion May Matter More Than More Resources

Association strategy frequently begins with scarcity: we need more revenue, staff, volunteers, sponsors, or capacity. Sometimes that is absolutely true. However, adding resources to an organization with substantial Member ROI Leakage™ can simply give it more resources to convert poorly.

Before asking for more, examine what you already have. Where is executive attention disappearing? Where is volunteer expertise sitting dormant? Which relationships are not being activated? Which partnerships contain capabilities members rarely experience? Which programs consume resources disproportionate to the member value they create?

Every association will have some Member ROI Leakage™. The leadership challenge is to identify the consequential leaks and redirect that capacity toward greater member outcomes. The strongest associations may not be those with the most resources, but rather those that become exceptionally good at converting the resources already within their reach into value their members would meaningfully miss if it disappeared.

The better question is not simply whether your association is creating member value. It is how much of the potential value already within your reach is actually becoming Member ROI.

Executive Q&A

1. How do we know whether we have Member ROI Leakage™ if our membership and revenue numbers are healthy?

Healthy membership and revenue tell you something important about organizational performance, but they do not reveal how efficiently your available capacity is being converted into member value. Leakage can exist inside a financially successful association. Look beyond organizational outputs and examine the connection between major investments and meaningful member outcomes. The question is not simply whether a program is successful, but whether the resources committed to it could create substantially greater Member ROI elsewhere.

2. Where should we look first for Member ROI Leakage™?

Start with your largest commitments of money, staff time, volunteer energy, and executive attention. Large commitments create the greatest opportunity for both value creation and leakage. Then look for resources that are difficult to see on a financial statement, particularly relationships, expertise, partnerships, leadership attention, and volunteer knowledge. Some of the largest leaks may involve valuable assets the association already possesses but has never fully activated.

3. How do we measure member outcomes when many association benefits do not produce an obvious financial return?

Member ROI should not be limited to dollars returned to the member. Outcomes can include time saved, problems avoided, knowledge gained and applied, professional opportunities created, relationships developed, influence increased, career advancement, improved business performance, or access that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. The important shift is from measuring whether members participated to understanding what changed for them because they participated.

4. How do we distinguish Member ROI Leakage™ from ordinary organizational inefficiency?

Efficiency asks whether the organization is using resources economically. Member ROI Leakage™ asks whether those resources are becoming meaningful member value. An efficiently delivered program can still represent leakage if it produces limited member outcomes. Conversely, an expensive program may represent an excellent investment if it creates substantial Member ROI. Efficiency matters, but value conversion is the larger strategic question.

5. Could a popular program still represent Member ROI Leakage™?

Absolutely. Popularity demonstrates that members like or use something; it does not automatically establish the value they receive from it. A program can have strong attendance, positive evaluations, and considerable organizational support while producing relatively modest outcomes. The appropriate question is not whether members like the program enough to keep it. Leadership should ask whether the resources invested are producing sufficient Member ROI compared with other opportunities available to the association.

6. How do we raise this issue with a board without making the discussion sound like a cost-cutting exercise?

Frame the conversation around value creation and resource allocation rather than elimination. Begin with the resources being invested, identify the member outcomes those resources are intended to create, and then ask whether greater value could be created through a different allocation. The objective is not to find programs to cut. It is to increase the amount of organizational capacity that ultimately becomes meaningful member value.

7. What should we do when a legacy program has strong emotional support but questionable Member ROI?

Separate respect for the program’s history from the decision about its future. Determine what members currently value about the program, what outcomes it produces, what it truly costs to deliver, and what other opportunities those resources could support. A long-standing program may remain essential and deserve continued investment. The problem occurs when history becomes the primary justification for resources that could create greater value elsewhere.

8. How can we identify relationship leakage when relationships are difficult to measure?

Begin by identifying valuable connections the association is uniquely positioned to facilitate. Look at mentoring, peer problem-solving, professional introductions, referrals, access to experts, partner expertise, and connections between experienced and emerging professionals. Then examine whether those connections are actually occurring. You do not need to assign a dollar value to every relationship. You do need to determine whether valuable relationship capital is being activated or simply sitting inside the membership community.

9. How often should we conduct a Member ROI Leakage Audit?

The larger review should be incorporated into the association’s strategic planning and resource-allocation process rather than treated as a one-time exercise. However, leadership teams can use the three questions from the article whenever significant programs, investments, or commitments are reviewed: What are we investing? What meaningful member outcome is being created? Could these resources create substantially greater member value elsewhere? Used consistently, those questions can change how resource decisions are made.

10. What is the most important leadership shift required to reduce Member ROI Leakage™?

Stop assuming that more organizational activity automatically creates more member value. Leadership should increasingly manage the association as a value-conversion system. That means understanding the resources already available, identifying where potential value is being lost or left dormant, and deliberately reallocating capacity toward better member outcomes. The goal is not maximum activity or minimum cost. It is maximum meaningful Member ROI from the resources already within your reach.

The Value Creation Ecosystem™ (970 Words)

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Why the Most Valuable Associations Don’t Just Deliver Benefits, They Multiply Value

For decades, associations have largely operated from a straightforward value proposition: we provide education, advocacy, certification, research, publications, conferences, networking, and other benefits; members pay dues and receive access to that value. There is nothing inherently wrong with this model, but it carries an important limitation. It positions the association as the producer of value and the member primarily as its consumer.

That assumption puts enormous pressure on associations to continually produce more programs, content, events, resources, and benefits. Yet every association operates with finite staff, money, expertise, and organizational capacity. The opportunity is to recognize that the association’s greatest value may not be everything it produces, but everything it makes possible among the people and organizations within its reach.

Value Creation Is Larger Than Value Delivery

Traditional value delivery generally moves in one direction. The association creates something, delivers it, and the member consumes it. A Value Creation Ecosystem™ works differently because valuable knowledge, relationships, expertise, access, and opportunities exist throughout the membership community.

The association remains an important value creator through education, advocacy, information, certification, and access. Members create value for other members through mentoring, referrals, knowledge sharing, relationships, and professional opportunities. Partners contribute expertise, technology, resources, and solutions. Members return value to the association through volunteer leadership, content, credibility, advocacy, and community participation. The association then extends value beyond its membership through standards, workforce development, research, advocacy, and credibility for the profession or industry.

These are not independent transactions. A relationship can produce knowledge. Knowledge can create an opportunity. An opportunity can generate an outcome that increases the value of membership and encourages further participation. The power of an ecosystem emerges when one value exchange creates the conditions for another.

The Association Becomes the Architect

This changes the executive responsibility. The association can evolve from provider to convener to connector to catalyst to ecosystem architect. Providing benefits remains important, but leadership begins looking beyond what staff can directly produce toward what the entire community can make possible.

A staff of 20 can produce only so many programs, publications, meetings, and services. An association with 5,000 members, industry partners, subject-matter experts, volunteers, and relationships with complementary organizations possesses a much larger reservoir of knowledge, capability, access, and relationships. Much of that potential value may already exist but remain dormant because the connections necessary to activate it have not been created.

The executive question therefore changes from “What additional benefits can we provide?” to “What additional value can we enable others to create?” The association’s role is to identify Value Sources, create Value Connections, encourage Value Exchanges, enable Value Multiplication, and ultimately produce meaningful Member Outcomes. It does not need to own every capability. It needs to become skilled at orchestrating them.

Value Must Circulate

There is an important requirement to this model. An ecosystem cannot thrive when participants primarily arrive to extract value. Experienced professionals who never share expertise leave valuable knowledge dormant. Suppliers who see the association solely as access to prospects contribute less potential value than partners willing to bring expertise and solutions into the community. Members who remain entirely passive limit the value they could help create for others.

The answer is not participation for participation’s sake. Associations need to create meaningful opportunities for members, volunteers, and partners to contribute what they are uniquely positioned to offer. Reciprocity then becomes more than a desirable cultural characteristic; it becomes part of the economics of membership.

Value that only flows in one direction is a benefit. Value that continually circulates becomes an ecosystem.

This also expands how we think about Member ROI. A referral, mentoring relationship, professional introduction, or solution discovered through another participant may create substantial value even though association staff did not directly produce it. The association created the environment in which the exchange became possible.

Relationships Make the Ecosystem Harder to Replace

Members may initially join for education, certification, advocacy, information, or another identifiable benefit. Over time, however, they can accumulate relationships, visibility, professional opportunities, mentors, reputation, access, friendships, and social capital within the community.

These forms of value behave differently from traditional benefits. Benefits can be copied more easily than relationships can be reconstructed. Another organization can offer a webinar. An online platform can distribute information. A commercial provider can develop training. Recreating years of trusted relationships, accumulated credibility, and access to the right people is considerably more difficult.

This is where the Value Creation Ecosystem™ strengthens Community Gravity and Member ROI. The association becomes harder to replace because its value resides not only in what it produces, but also in the network of exchanges, opportunities, and relationships it enables.

Expand the Ecosystem Beyond Your Boundaries

The same principle applies to strategic partners. Universities, corporations, complementary associations, technology providers, and subject-matter experts may possess capabilities members need that the association could never economically develop internally.

Instead of asking, “Can we afford to provide this?” leadership can ask, “Who already possesses the capability our members need, and how might we bring that capability into our ecosystem?” The objective is not accumulating partnerships. It is expanding meaningful Member ROI by connecting members with capabilities that already exist.

Measure What You Make Possible

Association executives should look beyond their inventory of benefits and examine how value actually moves through the organization. Who creates value besides staff? How much member-to-member value is deliberately enabled? Which partner capabilities remain untapped? What member knowledge and expertise remain dormant? Where are potentially valuable connections being missed?

Then consider the harder resource-allocation question: could the association create greater Member ROI by producing one less benefit and enabling more valuable connections, exchanges, and outcomes?

The strongest association does not necessarily provide the most benefits. It creates an environment in which members, partners, volunteers, staff, and the profession continually create value for one another. If an association believes it must personally produce all the value its members receive, its value model may already be too small.

The future belongs to associations that expand the question from “What value can we deliver?” to “How much value can we cause to exist?” That is the difference between delivering member benefits and building a Value Creation Ecosystem™.

Executive Q&A

1. How do we know whether we are actually creating an ecosystem rather than simply offering a large collection of benefits?

Look at how value moves. If most value originates with staff, is packaged into programs or services, and is then consumed by members, you still have primarily a value-delivery model. A Value Creation Ecosystem™ becomes visible when members, partners, volunteers, experts, and the association routinely create value for one another. The test is not how many benefits you offer. It is how many meaningful value exchanges your association enables.

2. How can we measure value that the association enables but does not directly provide?

Start by identifying outcomes rather than counting activities. A member introduction that produces a business opportunity, a mentoring relationship that accelerates someone’s career, or an expert connection that solves an expensive problem may create substantial Member ROI even though staff did not produce the value directly. Associations should increasingly document these enabled outcomes alongside traditional measures such as registrations, downloads, attendance, and utilization.

3. Does this mean associations should produce fewer programs and benefits?

Not necessarily. The objective is not fewer benefits; it is greater Member ROI. Some association-produced benefits may be highly valuable or essential and deserve continued investment. Others may consume resources that could create greater value if redirected toward connections, partnerships, communities, or other exchanges. The strategic question is whether the association is allocating resources to the activities that create the greatest meaningful value for members.

4. How do we encourage members to contribute value without making participation feel like another obligation?

Create opportunities for contribution that are useful, specific, and appropriate to the member. Not everyone wants to chair a committee or make a major volunteer commitment. A member might answer a peer’s question, mentor an emerging professional, provide expertise, make an introduction, contribute content, or participate in advocacy. The objective is not maximum participation. It is making valuable contribution easier and more relevant.

5. What role should industry suppliers and sponsors play in a Value Creation Ecosystem™?

They should be viewed as potential sources of capability, not simply revenue. Many suppliers possess expertise, technology, research, market knowledge, and solutions that can create meaningful member value. The association should determine where supplier capabilities align with legitimate member needs and create appropriate opportunities for exchange. Sponsorship dollars have value, but a partner capable of contributing expertise and solutions may create value far beyond the sponsorship check.

6. How does a Value Creation Ecosystem™ improve retention?

It can make the association progressively harder to replace. Programs and information may be available elsewhere, but trusted relationships, professional reputation, accumulated social capital, access to peers, and recurring opportunities are much harder to reconstruct. As members become more deeply connected to valuable people and opportunities within the ecosystem, the membership relationship can become increasingly important to their professional success. That is stronger than simply giving members more reasons to renew.

7. How should the board’s role change if we adopt this approach?

The board should focus less on evaluating the association by the volume of activity and more on whether organizational resources are creating meaningful member outcomes. That means asking whether the association is activating its available knowledge, relationships, partnerships, and community capacity. Governance should help management establish strategic priorities and resource-allocation criteria without attempting to manage every individual program or value exchange.

8. What is the greatest implementation risk in moving toward an ecosystem model?

Treating it as another program. A Value Creation Ecosystem™ is not a new membership benefit, technology platform, networking event, or committee. It is a different way of understanding how the association creates value. If leadership simply adds several “ecosystem initiatives” without reconsidering resource allocation, partnerships, member contribution, community design, and success measures, it will add complexity without fundamentally changing the value model.

9. Where should an association begin if it wants to build a stronger Value Creation Ecosystem™?

Map the value that already exists. Identify your Value Sources: members, staff, volunteers, partners, experts, institutions, and other organizations possessing knowledge, relationships, access, or capabilities members value. Then examine the Value Connections and Value Exchanges currently occurring between them. Look especially for valuable resources that are present but poorly connected. Frequently, the first opportunity is not creating something new. It is activating value that already exists.

10. What should ultimately determine whether our Value Creation Ecosystem™ is working?

Member outcomes. Connections, engagement, participation, partnerships, and community activity are useful indicators, but they are not the final objective. Leadership should eventually be able to demonstrate that the ecosystem helps members solve problems, create opportunities, build valuable relationships, improve professional performance, gain access, reduce costs, increase revenue, strengthen their careers or businesses, or achieve other outcomes they consider important. The ultimate measure is not how active the ecosystem appears. It is how much meaningful Member ROI the ecosystem causes to exist.

Your Members Invest Far More Than Their Dues (940 Words)

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Association executives have spent decades learning how to demonstrate that membership is worth more than the dues a member pays. If annual dues are $750 and the association can identify $3,000 in member benefits, the calculation appears compelling. The member receives four dollars of value for every dollar invested, and leadership can confidently point to excellent Member ROI.

I have been teaching this calculation method since 2000, and it became the foundation of my 2014 book, The ROI of Membership. I still believe strongly in measuring and communicating the real-dollar value an association delivers. However, my thinking has evolved because I now believe the traditional calculation can leave something important out: the $750 may not represent the member’s actual investment.

Membership Has a Hidden Cost

Dues are attractive to measure because they are obvious. The amount appears on an invoice, enters the accounting system, and becomes revenue on the association’s financial statements. The rest of the member’s investment is easier to overlook because most of it never appears on our books.

In The ROI of Membership, I recognized both time and money as member investments, but the methodology concentrated primarily on quantifying real-dollar value and comparing it with the financial cost of belonging. Today, I believe we need to widen that lens. A member who attends programs, reads association communications, serves on a committee, answers surveys, mentors colleagues, shares expertise, and travels to meetings is investing considerably more than dues.

This matters because members today are not merely experiencing financial pressure. They are experiencing what I have described as an Attention Recession. Work, employees, customers, family, other organizations, online communities, LinkedIn, free educational resources, and an almost unlimited supply of information are all competing for the same finite resource: the member’s attention.

The Investment Is Bigger Than the Invoice

When someone chooses membership, the investment can include money, time, attention, participation, expertise, relationships, reputation, and opportunity cost. Not every member invests these equally, which makes the economics of membership considerably more sophisticated than simply comparing benefits with dues.

Consider a corporate member paying $10,000 annually but requiring relatively little personal involvement from any one executive. Compare that with an individual volunteer leader paying $500 in dues while contributing 100 hours annually, sharing expertise, participating in meetings, opening professional relationships, and lending credibility to association initiatives. The dues ledger tells us who paid more money; it does not necessarily tell us who invested more in the association.

We do not need to force every hour, relationship, or ounce of attention into an artificial dollar amount. We do, however, need to acknowledge that these investments are real and that they influence how members ultimately judge their return.

We Know What Members Are Worth to Us

Associations have become quite sophisticated at measuring what members are worth to the organization. We track dues revenue, renewal rates, lifetime value, event registrations, sponsorships, volunteer participation, contributions, purchases, and other forms of engagement because leadership needs to understand the economic health of the organization.

My thinking today increasingly asks us to turn that telescope around and examine what the association is worth to the member. Instead of beginning only with what the member contributes financially, we need to consider the member’s complete investment and then examine the meaningful value returned.

That distinction should matter to CEOs and boards because sustainable membership growth depends on both sides of the exchange remaining favorable.

Benefits Offered Are Not Value Received

Associations also tend to equate the number of benefits offered with the amount of value delivered. An organization may proudly list 29 benefits of membership, but that does not mean an individual member receives meaningful value from all 29. There is an important difference between benefits available and value realized.

Utilization alone cannot determine value either. A member does not have to personally use every benefit for that benefit to create value. Advocacy is a good example. In 2014, I drew a strong distinction between member-only benefits and industry stakeholder benefits, particularly for recruitment. I still believe that distinction matters. Yet my thinking has broadened because value to an existing member can extend beyond what that member personally consumes. An advocacy victory can create significant economic value even for a member who never attends a government affairs meeting.

The executive challenge is therefore more sophisticated than counting benefits or measuring usage. We need to understand what members genuinely perceive as valuable, what value they actually receive, and what they must invest to remain part of the relationship.

Put the Member’s Side on the Board Agenda

Membership retention is frequently treated as a membership department responsibility. The board receives the renewal number, discusses whether it increased or decreased, and perhaps reviews the latest membership survey. But if Member ROI ultimately determines whether belonging continues to make economic and professional sense, the issue belongs at the governance level.

Boards and CEOs should examine what membership actually requires members to invest, what meaningful value members receive in return, and whether the total exchange remains favorable enough that a rational member would choose membership again today. Renewal alone cannot answer that question because habit, relationships, professional identity, and institutional momentum can temporarily mask declining value.

Look at Both Sides of the Equation

Return to our original example. Perhaps annual dues really are $750 and the association genuinely delivers $3,000 in member value. That may represent an excellent return, but the calculation is incomplete if we ignore the member’s investment of time, attention, participation, expertise, relationships, reputation, and lost opportunities.

This does not invalidate what I wrote in The ROI of Membership in 2014. It expands it. I still believe associations should quantify, prove, and communicate the value they deliver. What has evolved is my understanding of the other side of the equation.

Associations have spent decades calculating what a member is worth to the organization. Perhaps it is time we became equally rigorous about calculating what the organization is worth to the member.

Executive Q&A:

1. If dues are no longer the member’s complete investment, what else should association leaders consider?

Association leaders should consider the full range of resources members commit to belonging, including time, attention, participation, expertise, relationships, reputation, and opportunity cost. The objective is not necessarily to assign a precise dollar amount to each investment. It is to recognize that dues represent only the most visible portion of what membership requires from the member.

2. How can we measure Member ROI if time, attention, and relationships are difficult to quantify?

Do not allow the difficulty of achieving mathematical precision to become an excuse for ignoring meaningful member investments. Begin by identifying what members must contribute to access the value you provide. Measure what can reasonably be measured, such as time spent traveling, attending programs, volunteering, or participating in association activities. For less tangible investments, qualitative member research can reveal whether members believe the value received justifies what they are putting into the relationship.

3. Are we suggesting that highly engaged members could actually experience lower Member ROI?

Potentially. Engagement requires investment. A highly engaged volunteer may receive substantial value from leadership opportunities, relationships, access, and professional visibility, but that member may also contribute significant time and expertise. Associations should not automatically assume that greater engagement equals greater Member ROI. The important question is whether the value received remains favorable relative to the member’s total investment.

4. Should we try to reduce the amount of time members spend with our association?

Not necessarily. The objective is not to minimize member time; it is to make that time worth investing. A two-hour program that produces an important business relationship, solves a costly problem, or delivers knowledge a member can immediately apply may generate excellent Member ROI. The danger is consuming member time without delivering sufficient corresponding value.

5. If a benefit is rarely used, does that mean it has little member value?

No. Usage and value are related, but they are not the same. Advocacy demonstrates the distinction particularly well. Members may never personally participate in the association’s advocacy work while receiving substantial economic or professional value from its results. The appropriate question is not simply whether members use a benefit, but whether they recognize and receive meaningful value from it.

6. How should this change the way we communicate our membership value proposition?

Move beyond publishing a long inventory of available features of membership. Members need to understand the benefit outcomes they make possible and the value those outcomes can create. Rather than telling members only what they receive, help them recognize what the association saves them, earns them, protects for them, makes easier, or enables them to accomplish.

7. Does this mean our current Member ROI calculations are wrong?

Not necessarily. Comparing real-dollar member value with dues remains useful because both sides of that calculation can be quantified. The evolution is recognizing that the calculation may be incomplete. Dues tell us what the member invested financially, but they do not capture the member’s entire investment in the relationship. The next level of Member ROI thinking requires examining both.

8. Why should the board be concerned with this rather than leaving it to the membership staff?

Because the issue goes beyond retention tactics. Member ROI affects the sustainability of the membership model itself. Boards make decisions about strategy, dues, programs, resource allocation, technology, events, volunteer structures, and organizational priorities. Each can increase either the value members receive or the investment required from them. That makes the member’s side of the equation a governance issue.

9. What is the most useful question we can ask members to begin understanding their total investment?

Start with something broader than, “Are you satisfied with your membership?” Ask members what they must invest—in addition to dues—to receive meaningful value from the association, and whether what they receive justifies that investment. Follow-up questions can explore time, attention, participation, and opportunity cost. The purpose is to understand the exchange from the member’s perspective rather than asking members to validate the association’s existing benefits.

10. What should association executives do differently after recognizing the member’s complete investment?

Begin evaluating important programs, services, communications, events, and volunteer activities from both sides of the exchange. Determine not only what each delivers but also what it requires from the member to obtain that value. The executive objective should be to increase meaningful value without unnecessarily increasing the member’s burden of participation. The strongest membership proposition is not simply one that delivers more benefits; it is one that produces a return members believe is worth everything they invest to receive it.

The Member Value Multiplier (840 Words)

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Strategic Alliances Have Become a Leadership Imperative for Associations

Association leaders are being asked to deliver more value than ever before while working within the same financial and staffing constraints. Members expect timely education, stronger advocacy, meaningful networking, practical business resources, and immediate access to expertise. Boards expect growth in membership, increased non-dues revenue, and measurable organizational performance. Yet most associations cannot continue expanding programs, hiring staff, or investing in new technology every time a need emerges. The challenge is no longer identifying opportunities to serve members; it is increasing an organization’s capacity to deliver greater value without proportionally increasing its complexity.

For many associations, the instinctive response has been to build internally. Every new initiative becomes another committee, another program, another platform, or another staff responsibility. While each decision may be justified on its own merits, together they create an organization increasingly occupied with maintaining what it has already built. Eventually, growth slows—not because leadership lacks vision, but because the organization has reached its practical capacity.

Capacity, Not Size, Determines Member Value

Years of helping organizations develop strategic alliances taught me an important lesson: the associations delivering the greatest member value were rarely those with the largest budgets or staffs. Their advantage came from understanding that they didn’t have to own every capability. Instead, they intentionally connected members with expertise, resources, and opportunities that existed beyond the organization’s walls. Their success was measured not by what they controlled, but by what they made possible.

That realization became what I now call The Member Value Multiplier™. Associations create greater Member ROI when they multiply organizational capacity rather than simply expanding organizational structure. Strategic alliances allow an organization to offer capabilities that would otherwise require significant investments in people, technology, or infrastructure. Instead of becoming larger, the association becomes more valuable.

Strategic Alliances Are About Mission, Not Transactions

Every association works with vendors, sponsors, consultants, and service providers. Those relationships are important, but they are transactional by design. A strategic alliance is fundamentally different because both organizations invest in achieving outcomes that neither could accomplish alone. The objective is not simply exchanging services or generating revenue; it is advancing a shared mission while creating greater value for members.

Evaluating alliances through the lens of Member ROI also changes how leadership measures success. Revenue matters, but it should not be the only benchmark. The strongest alliances expand educational opportunities, improve access to specialized expertise, strengthen professional networks, create operational efficiencies, or enhance member services in ways that reinforce the association’s long-term relevance. Financial return becomes one benefit of a relationship whose primary purpose is delivering greater member value.

Relationships Create the Capacity to Grow

Nearly three decades past, in Developing Strategic Alliances, I introduced the concept of the Relationship Bank—the idea that trust, credibility, and mutual benefit accumulate through consistent investment. Time has only reinforced that principle. Successful alliances are built long before contracts are signed because organizations that consistently invest in relationships develop opportunities unavailable to those who focus only on transactions. Trust cannot be negotiated into existence; it must be earned over time.

Equally important, and also introduced in Developing Strategic Alliances, is conducting a regular Relationship Value Update (RVU). Associations routinely evaluate programs, budgets, and membership trends, yet many rarely assess whether their strategic relationships continue to advance the mission or improve Member ROI. Every alliance should periodically answer a simple question: Does this relationship create more value for our members today than it did yesterday? If the answer is no, leadership has an obligation to strengthen the relationship—or replace it.

Leadership’s Greatest Responsibility Is to Multiply Value

The most successful associations of the coming decade will not necessarily offer the most programs or employ the largest staffs. They will distinguish themselves by making disciplined decisions about which capabilities must be developed internally and which can be multiplied through carefully selected strategic alliances. Their competitive advantage will come from extending organizational capacity rather than expanding organizational complexity.

That is the essence of The Member Value Multiplier. It is not a partnership strategy; it is a leadership philosophy. Associations exist to improve the professional success of their members, not to own every resource required to do so. Leaders who embrace strategic alliances as a means of multiplying organizational capacity will deliver greater Member ROI, strengthen non-dues revenue, and position their organizations to thrive in an environment where expectations continue to rise while resources remain finite. That is leadership focused not on doing more, but on creating more value.

Executive Q&A

1. How do we determine whether a strategic alliance is the right solution instead of developing a new program internally?

Begin with your mission rather than your capabilities. If another organization can help you deliver greater member value faster, at lower cost, and without compromising your brand or member experience, an alliance deserves serious consideration. Build internally only when the capability is truly strategic to your long-term identity.

2. How can we ensure that a strategic alliance strengthens rather than dilutes our association’s brand?

Members should always experience the alliance as an extension of your association’s commitment to serving them. Select partners whose values, reputation, and standards reinforce your own, and maintain clear oversight of the member experience.

3. What criteria should boards use when evaluating potential alliance partners?

Look beyond financial return. Assess mission alignment, complementary strengths, organizational culture, leadership credibility, member impact, and the partner’s commitment to long-term collaboration. The best alliances create value for both organizations while producing even greater value for members.

4. How do strategic alliances contribute to non-dues revenue?

Effective alliances often generate revenue through joint educational programs, certifications, sponsorships, affinity programs, research initiatives, and shared events. The most successful partnerships create sustainable value that benefits members first and revenue second.

5. What risks should association executives consider before entering an alliance?

Poorly aligned missions, unclear governance, uneven expectations, and inadequate communication create the greatest risk. A successful alliance requires shared objectives, defined responsibilities, measurable outcomes, and periodic evaluation.

6. How frequently should an association evaluate its strategic alliances?

At least annually. Conduct a Relationship Value Update (RVU) to determine whether each alliance continues to advance your mission, improve Member ROI, and justify the investment of organizational time and resources.

7. Can smaller associations benefit from strategic alliances as much as larger organizations?

Often more so. Smaller associations can significantly expand their capabilities by leveraging complementary expertise and resources without incurring the costs of additional staff or infrastructure.

8. How should staff and volunteer leaders be involved in alliance development?

Leadership establishes strategic direction, while staff manage implementation and relationship stewardship. Volunteers provide valuable perspective on member needs and can often identify partnership opportunities that strengthen the association’s value proposition.

9. What is the greatest misconception about strategic alliances?

Many leaders view alliances primarily as revenue opportunities. Their greatest value lies in expanding organizational capacity and improving Member ROI. Financial benefits are often the result—not the purpose—of a well-designed alliance.

10. How does The Member Value Multiplier™ change an executive’s approach to leadership?

It shifts leadership from asking, “How do we build this ourselves?” to asking, “Who already does this exceptionally well, and how can we work together to create greater value for our members?” That perspective encourages strategic thinking, resource stewardship, and sustained organizational growth.

Is Your Association’s Non-Dues Revenue Model Quietly Becoming a Commodity?

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The Traditional Non-Dues Revenue Model

For decades, associations and professional societies have relied heavily on non-dues revenue generated through knowledge-based products and services. Educational programming, white papers, benchmarking reports, certification preparation materials, webinars, publications, and industry resources have long represented both value to members and financial stability to organizations. In many cases, these offerings became foundational to an association’s revenue model because associations historically controlled access to specialized information and industry expertise.

The Marketplace Has Changed

Today, information is everywhere. Members have immediate access to articles, summaries, templates, research, training materials, and industry commentary from countless sources. The challenge facing association leaders is not whether professional knowledge still matters. It absolutely does. The challenge is that information itself is no longer scarce. When information becomes abundant, its perceived value often declines. That reality creates enormous pressure on organizations whose non-dues revenue depends heavily on packaging and distributing information.

This shift creates an uncomfortable but necessary strategic question for every association CEO and board of directors:

If information alone is no longer difficult to obtain, what exactly are members paying for?

That question goes directly to Member ROI.

The Danger of Commoditization

Far too many organizations continue measuring value based on output rather than impact. More webinars. More articles. More downloadable resources. More educational sessions. Yet members are increasingly overwhelmed by content while simultaneously struggling to determine what is truly credible, applicable, and worth trusting. Quantity no longer signals authority. In many cases, it simply contributes to noise.

This is where many associations risk becoming commoditized without even realizing it. Generic educational materials, introductory training programs, broad trend summaries, routine white papers, and standardized reports are becoming increasingly vulnerable because they can often be replicated quickly and inexpensively by outside providers. If the primary value proposition of a product is simply “access to information,” the marketplace will inevitably push pricing downward over time.

Where Associations Still Hold Strategic Advantage

However, this does not mean associations are losing relevance. Quite the opposite. It means associations must become far more intentional about where their highest value actually resides.

The future advantage for associations may not be information distribution. It may be trusted interpretation.

That distinction is critically important. Members are no longer simply looking for data. They are looking for confidence. They want confidence that the information they are using is accurate, professionally validated, ethically grounded, and reflective of real-world application. They want context, judgment, and credibility. Those are assets associations still possess in abundance, if they recognize their strategic importance.

The Power of Validation and Credibility

There is a substantial difference between information that is merely available and information that has been validated by practitioners, peer-reviewed by experts, interpreted within industry context, and aligned with professional standards. Associations occupy a unique position because they can bring together practitioners, executives, suppliers, credentialed experts, researchers, and industry leaders into one ecosystem of collective intelligence. That kind of credibility is difficult to duplicate.

This is also why association leaders should reconsider how they evaluate educational success and non-dues revenue performance. Activity metrics alone are no longer enough. The important question is not simply how many people attended a webinar or downloaded a report. The more important question is whether the organization helped members make better decisions, reduce risk, strengthen professional competency, improve operational performance, or increase marketplace credibility.

That is the real Member ROI conversation.

The Future Belongs to Trusted Ecosystems

Associations that understand this shift early will likely emerge stronger because they will reposition themselves around higher-value offerings that are harder to commoditize. Strategic peer communities, executive roundtables, facilitated discussions, leadership development, standards interpretation, benchmarking validation, and curated industry intelligence all become more valuable when members are overwhelmed by unfiltered information elsewhere.

In many ways, associations must evolve from being primarily content providers into becoming trusted professional intelligence and validation ecosystems. That is a very different role than simply producing more educational material. It requires organizations to focus less on information volume and more on helping members interpret complexity, reduce uncertainty, and make smarter strategic decisions within their industries.

The Bottom-Line Reality

The associations that thrive over the next decade will likely be those that recognize a fundamental truth:

Information has become abundant. Trusted interpretation remains scarce.

And scarcity is where enduring value and sustainable non-dues revenue will continue to exist.

Questions & Answers

  1. Why is non-dues revenue becoming more vulnerable?
    Because information-based products are easier to replicate, making generic education, reports, and templates less defensible.

  2. Does this mean association education is losing value?
    No. It means education must move beyond information delivery and prove practical, measurable Member ROI.

  3. What kinds of non-dues products are most at risk?
    Generic webinars, basic training, broad white papers, introductory certification prep, and routine reports are most vulnerable.

  4. What kinds of offerings become more valuable?
    Validated guidance, peer-reviewed insight, benchmarking interpretation, executive roundtables, and facilitated peer communities become more valuable.

  5. Why is trusted interpretation more important than information?
    Members are overwhelmed with content and need help knowing what is accurate, relevant, ethical, and useful.

  6. How should boards think about this issue?
    Boards should ask whether each non-dues product delivers measurable impact or simply adds more content to the marketplace.

  7. What is the Member ROI connection?
    Members renew and invest when the association helps them make better decisions, reduce risk, improve performance, or strengthen credibility.

  8. Should associations stop producing reports and educational content?
    No. They should strengthen those offerings with expert validation, industry context, and practical application.

  9. What is the danger of measuring only attendance and downloads?
    Those metrics measure activity, not whether members received meaningful value or improved outcomes.

  10. What should association CEOs do first?
    They should audit non-dues offerings and identify which are information commodities and which deliver trusted, differentiated value.

The Hidden Tax of Tolerating Underperformance (1190 Words)

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How Weak Staff and Volunteers Quietly Destroy Member ROI, Strategic Momentum, and Organizational Credibility

Most association leaders do not intentionally tolerate mediocrity. In fact, many organizations begin with high standards, committed volunteers, talented staff, and ambitious goals. The problem is that underperformance rarely arrives as a crisis. It emerges gradually through delayed conversations, lowered expectations, political accommodations, and the belief that good intentions should somehow offset poor results. Over time, these small compromises accumulate until underperformance becomes embedded in the culture itself.

That is when associations begin paying what I call the Hidden Tax of Underperformance.

Unlike a budget deficit or declining membership trend, this tax never appears on a financial statement. There is no accounting category labeled “cost of avoiding accountability,” nor will an auditor identify revenue lost because the wrong people remained in critical roles too long. Yet the cost is very real. In many associations, it affects member retention, volunteer engagement, sponsorship growth, staff morale, strategic execution, and organizational credibility long before leaders recognize the connection.

Throughout my work with association CEOs, boards, and volunteer leaders, I have observed that organizations rarely decline because of a single catastrophic decision. More often, they weaken because leaders tolerate behaviors that should have been addressed years earlier. A missed deadline becomes acceptable. A disengaged committee chair remains in place. A staff member consistently underdelivers but avoids consequences. An ineffective board member is retained because of tenure, political influence, or donor status. Individually, these decisions appear manageable. Collectively, they create a culture where accountability becomes optional.

The consequences extend far beyond the individual involved. Many leaders view underperformance as a personnel issue when, in reality, it is a systems issue. Every underperforming staff member or volunteer creates friction throughout the organization. Projects move more slowly. Decision-making becomes less efficient. Strong performers spend increasing amounts of time compensating for weaker contributors. Innovation slows because energy is redirected toward maintaining momentum rather than creating it. The organization begins operating below its potential, often without realizing how much capacity has been lost.

This effect is particularly dangerous in associations because the organizational structure already contains natural friction. Boards provide oversight. Committees review recommendations. Stakeholders expect input. Policies require compliance. Multiple constituencies demand consideration. These governance structures are necessary, but they also slow decision-making. When underperformance is added to an already complex system, organizational drag increases dramatically. What should take weeks takes months. What should require one conversation requires five. What should be a strategic priority becomes trapped in operational delays.

The people who recognize this problem first are rarely the weakest performers. They are the strongest. High-performing staff, volunteer leaders, and committee chairs possess an acute awareness of organizational fairness. They know who consistently delivers results and who repeatedly falls short. More importantly, they notice whether leadership responds. When accountability is unevenly applied, top performers begin asking difficult questions. They wonder why they are carrying a disproportionate share of the workload. They question whether additional effort is worth the investment. Eventually, some stop volunteering for leadership positions altogether.

This is where the connection to Member ROI becomes impossible to ignore. In a Member ROI-centric organization, membership is not the responsibility of the membership department alone. Every function influences the member experience. Education affects renewal. Governance affects confidence. Events influence referrals. Marketing affects relevance. Volunteers shape engagement. Staff performance influences loyalty. As a result, underperformance in one area rarely remains isolated. It eventually affects the value members receive from the organization.

Members may never know which staff member missed a deadline or which volunteer failed to fulfill a commitment. They do not need to know. What they experience are the downstream effects. Programs become repetitive. Innovation slows. Sponsor relationships weaken. Communication becomes less responsive. Committees lose effectiveness. Opportunities are missed. The member may not identify the cause, but they certainly experience the result. Their return on investment begins to decline.

The same pattern extends beyond membership. Associations depend upon a complex ecosystem of sponsors, strategic partners, chapter leaders, vendors, coalition partners, and industry influencers. These relationships are built on reciprocity, trust, and reliable execution. When organizations tolerate weak performance, the effects inevitably extend into this alliance ecosystem. Missed commitments, delayed decisions, inconsistent communication, and weak follow-through create withdrawals from what I have long described as the Relationship Bank Ledger. Over time, those withdrawals erode confidence, weaken partnerships, and ultimately affect revenue.

Perhaps the greatest danger is the emergence of what I call consensus culture. Consensus culture often presents itself as collegiality, loyalty, or relationship preservation. In practice, it frequently becomes organizational avoidance. Leaders convince themselves that accountability can be postponed because an individual is well-liked, politically connected, historically valuable, or simply difficult to confront. The organization sacrifices performance for temporary comfort. Unfortunately, temporary comfort has a habit of becoming permanent dysfunction.

Association leaders must recognize a fundamental truth. Loyalty and competence are not the same thing. A volunteer may be deeply committed to the organization and still be the wrong person for a leadership role. A staff member may be well-liked and hardworking yet incapable of producing the results the organization requires. Effective leadership requires the courage to distinguish between commitment and capability.

The hard truth is that underperformers rarely destroy associations by themselves. Associations are damaged when leaders tolerate underperformance long enough for it to become culture. Once that occurs, Member ROI declines, strategic momentum weakens, alliances suffer, innovation slows, and credibility begins to erode.

Every tolerated underperformer creates a withdrawal from the organization’s Relationship Bank Ledger.

The question every association CEO and board chair should ask is simple: How many withdrawals is your organization currently absorbing that no one is measuring?

Questions & Answers:

1. How do I know if I have an underperformance problem versus a capacity problem?

Capacity problems are temporary and improve with resources, training, or time. Underperformance is repetitive behavior that continues even when support is available.

2. How does underperforming staff impact member retention?

Members rarely leave because of one big failure; they leave because of repeated small withdrawals in value. Slow responses, stale programs, and weak execution quietly erode member ROI.

3. Can one underperforming volunteer really hurt an entire association?

Absolutely. One weak volunteer in a leadership role can delay decisions, stall initiatives, and discourage future leaders from stepping forward.

4. What is the biggest mistake boards make when dealing with underperformance?

Boards often confuse loyalty with competency. Longevity, generosity, and popularity do not automatically equal strategic capability.

5. How does consensus culture protect underperformance?

Consensus culture often disguises avoidance as collaboration. Hard conversations get postponed, and accountability gets replaced by comfort.

6. How can a CEO quantify the cost of underperformance?

Track economic leakage such as member attrition, lost sponsorships, delayed launches, staff turnover, and missed alliance opportunities. What gets measured gets managed.

7. What should a CEO do if an underperformer is politically protected?

Lead with measurable outcomes, not emotion. Facts, metrics, and documented patterns reduce politics and create clarity.

8. How often should staff and volunteers be evaluated?

Annual reviews are too slow. Ninety-day accountability cycles reveal patterns before underperformance becomes culture.

9. How does underperformance affect sponsors and strategic alliances?

Underperformance leaks into your alliance ecosystem through missed deadlines, weak communication, and poor follow-through. Sponsors and partners notice faster than most leaders realize.

10. What is the first leadership principle for fixing underperformance?

Membership is everybody’s business. When leaders embrace that truth, underperformance becomes a strategic issue—not just a personnel issue.

Consensus Culture: The Hidden Governance Threat That Quietly Destroys Member ROI (707 Words)

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I have spent decades working with trade associations, professional societies, chief staff executives, and volunteer boards. I have sat in boardrooms filled with intelligent, accomplished leaders—people who built successful businesses, led divisions, and earned the respect of their industries. Yet I have also watched those same leaders collectively make slow decisions, avoid difficult conversations, protect outdated programs, and miss strategic opportunities hiding in plain sight. The problem is rarely a lack of intelligence. It is rarely a lack of commitment. More often than not, the real culprit is something far more subtle and far more dangerous: consensus culture.

To be clear, consensus itself is not the enemy. Healthy discussion, thoughtful debate, and director buy-in are essential to good governance. Consensus culture, however, is something entirely different. Consensus culture exists when preserving comfort becomes more important than pursuing mission. It exists when protecting relationships takes priority over making hard decisions. It exists when nobody wants to ask the uncomfortable question, challenge the legacy assumption, or force the board to confront a reality it would rather postpone. When that happens, governance quietly shifts from leadership to diplomacy.

Trade associations and professional societies are especially vulnerable because volunteer directors often arrive with strong reputations, long-standing industry relationships, political alliances, and personal loyalties. Many are highly successful in their own professions, yet few have received meaningful governance training. As a result, stakeholder politics can easily replace enterprise thinking. Instead of asking what is best for the organization three to five years from now, directors often focus on what keeps their constituency comfortable today.

Consensus culture rarely announces itself. It hides behind phrases that sound responsible. “Maybe we need more data.” “Perhaps we should revisit this next quarter.” “I’m not sure everyone is comfortable yet.” “Let’s send it back to committee.” On the surface, these statements may sound prudent. In reality, they often camouflage avoidance, political caution, or an unwillingness to lead.

And here is where consensus culture becomes expensive—very expensive.

Consensus culture quietly devastates member ROI.

When boards delay difficult decisions, members continue paying dues for programs that no longer create measurable value. When innovation is postponed, members miss access to new tools, new education, new partnerships, and new competitive advantages. When underperforming products survive because nobody wants political fallout, member resources are diverted from initiatives that could actually improve careers, businesses, and professional outcomes.

In other words, consensus culture creates an invisible tax on membership.

Members may not use the term “ROI,” but they feel it. They feel it when conferences become repetitive. They feel it when education lags behind market realities. They feel it when advocacy loses momentum. They feel it when networking becomes transactional instead of transformational. Eventually, members begin asking themselves a dangerous question:

“Am I receiving more value than what I’m paying?”

That is not a membership question.

That is an ROI question.

And when enough members answer “no,” retention drops, engagement weakens, sponsorship suffers, and non-dues revenue becomes harder to generate.

Meanwhile, the market is not waiting. Your association is no longer competing only with other associations. Today your competition includes private communities, niche influencers, digital education platforms, peer mastermind groups, and increasingly AI-driven knowledge ecosystems. These competitors move fast. They test quickly. They adapt quickly. They deliver value without waiting for unanimous committee approval.

Strong boards understand something weak boards often miss: leadership is not about universal agreement. Leadership is about informed commitment. Not every director has to love every decision. Not every vote should feel comfortable. But every director must be heard, every relevant perspective considered, and once the decision is made, every director must support execution.

The strongest board chairs I have worked with do not ask, “Does everyone agree?” They ask better questions. “Have all perspectives been heard?” “What are we avoiding?” “What will delay cost our members?” “How does this decision improve member ROI?”

That last question changes everything.

Because your members are not paying dues so your board can stay comfortable. They are investing in outcomes. They are investing in relevance. They are investing in measurable return.

Consensus culture protects comfort.

Governance protects mission.

And mission—when executed with courage—is what creates lasting member ROI.

Questions and Answers

1. Isn’t consensus a good thing for association boards?
Consensus can be healthy when it means directors have been heard and can support the decision. The problem begins when consensus becomes a requirement for comfort rather than a path to commitment. Boards do not need unanimous emotional agreement; they need informed discussion, clear decisions, and disciplined execution.

2. How does consensus culture damage member ROI?
Consensus culture delays decisions, protects outdated programs, and slows innovation. When that happens, members keep paying dues while receiving less relevant value. Over time, the association’s return on investment weakens because resources are tied up in comfort-driven decisions instead of mission-driven outcomes.

3. What are the warning signs that our board has a consensus culture problem?
Common signs include repeated delays, excessive committee referrals, unanimous votes followed by private disagreement, reluctance to challenge legacy programs, and board members avoiding difficult but necessary conversations.

4. Is consensus culture the same as collaboration?
No. Collaboration invites diverse perspectives to improve the decision. Consensus culture often avoids tension to preserve comfort. Collaboration strengthens governance; consensus culture weakens it when it replaces courage with accommodation.

5. Why are trade associations and professional societies especially vulnerable?
Volunteer directors often bring industry relationships, constituency loyalties, and political sensitivities into the boardroom. Without strong governance discipline, they may represent segments rather than govern the entire enterprise.

6. What should board chairs do differently?
Board chairs should stop asking only, “Does everyone agree?” Better questions include, “Have all perspectives been heard?” “What are we avoiding?” “What will delay cost our members?” and “How does this decision improve member ROI?”

7. Does every director need to agree before the board moves forward?
No. Every director needs the opportunity to be heard, but every director does not need to love the final decision. Once the board makes an informed decision, directors should support it publicly and help move the mission forward.

8. How can a board protect respectful relationships without avoiding hard decisions?
The board must separate respectful disagreement from personal conflict. Strong boards create norms that welcome dissent, require professional behavior, and keep the discussion focused on mission, strategy, and member value.

9. What is the chief staff executive’s role in addressing consensus culture?
The chief staff executive can help frame decisions around mission impact, member ROI, strategic risk, and opportunity cost. The CEO should not dominate the board, but should help the board understand the consequences of delay and avoidance.

10. What is the best first step for fixing consensus culture?
Start by making member ROI part of every strategic discussion. When the board consistently asks, “How does this decision create measurable value for members?” it shifts the conversation from comfort to accountability.

Project Association Member Value (581 words)

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Ed Rigsbee, top speaker on Membership Growth

The ROI of Membership

Does a professional or trade association exist to serve its members? How about to serve the profession or industry? Or, perhaps the association exists to perpetuate itself?

Sure, your answer is based on your personal experiences. Unfortunately though, I have come to believe that there are simply too many people involved in association leadership today that believe in self-survival. Many of these leaders do not consciously realize they believe that the reason for an association is to perpetuate itself. Yet, their actions in this area speak so loudly that few listen to their words.

I recently visited the web site of ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership and searched “member value” but what I found was more directed to the organizational side. My lack of finding information specific to “member value” strengthens my assertion. Sure I found great information on subjects like: Identifying program goals and setting realistic expectations, identifying and defining the needs of the target audience, developing program structure, building a budget and cross-selling and up-selling additional programs and services.

While these topics are all great tactics, what about the overarching strategy for an association? What about quantifying the real dollar value a member receives from holding membership in an association? This is an area that I have discovered many association leaders are missing the point. There are a few people left that join their trade or professional association because it is the right thing to do in supporting their industry. But, at corporate belt tightening continues, many are re-evaluating the value of such memberships.

Call me crazy, but I believe that a professional or trade association exists exclusively for the betterment of its members. Associations like these are really industry-wide strategic alliances. And, for strategic alliances to succeed, all involved must receive reasonable value for resource (time and money) commitment to the alliance. In associations, staff members receive value—it’s called a paycheck. Volunteer leaders receive value through exposure and having the ability to forward their particular agendas. But, what about the “rank and file” members—where’s their value?

If you are interested in this topic of member value, you’re in luck.

I have conducted my Association Member Value Process for a number of trade associations and societies of association executives over the years. The results might be helpful to you in benchmarking the value your association delivers to its members.

In visiting seven societies of association executives from October 2003 through May 2004 and conducting the process: On the average, association executives received 19X return on investment dollar from their membership. Average yearly membership and meeting participation cost—$914. The average yearly real-dollar value received—$17,390.

In visiting the national conventions of four trade associations from February through May 2004 and conducting the member value process, the average yearly member return on investment was 12 X. The average yearly membership and meeting participation cost—$2,250. The average yearly real-dollar value received—$27,800.

A huge study I conducted for the American Society for Quality (finished in 2007) revealed that their members get $50 dollars in value for every dollar they invest in their membership.

Association paid staff and volunteer leaders must continually question the yearly sustainable real-dollar value their members are receiving rather than just see members as an ATM (automatic teller machine). Without the members, there is no association.

The key to safeguarding your organization’s future…is to research, embrace, and maximize…your member ROI.

How Much Member ROI Does American Society for Quality Deliver to Its Members? (544 words & table)

in , /by
Ed Rigsbee, top speaker on Membership Growth

The ROI of Membership

The quick answer is a bunch! However, that is not the kind of answer that quality professionals generally desire. Today, armed with three years of data, I believe a have a substantive answer to this question.

Over three consecutive years (2005-2007), ASQ invited me to attend the World Conference on Quality and Improvement to conduct two sessions per conference of my Member Value ProcessTM. A random sampling of ASQ member, conference registrants, was invited to the sessions. This is a process, one that includes art and science, in which I draw from a representative sample of ASQ members, their belief as to how much dollar value they receive from their ASQ membership on an annual basis. This gives a return on investment (ROI) number for the attendees.

Most ASQ members spend under $200 per year on their membership and they receive about $10,500 in return for their investment. That’s over $50 in return for every dollar spent in ASQ membership. In anybody’s book, that’s enormous

ASQ membership, spend a dollar and get fifty back—it’s a No-Brainer.

Now that I’ve made such an outrageous statement, I had better prove myself. Listed below are the actual yearly sustainable, real dollar value numbers from the six sessions:

  • 2005 Session 1 — $8,100
  • 2005 Session 2 — $5,150
  • 2006 Session 1 — $14,919
  • 2006 Session 2 — $13,550
  • 2007 Session 1 — $9,750
  • 2007 Session 2 — $11,550

A grand total of $63,019, divided by the six sessions, equals $10,503 average yearly sustainable real dollar value that ASQ members receive. Divide the $10,503 yearly member value by the $200 yearly membership investment and you get 53 times the ROI. Rounded off, you get $50 dollars in return for every $1 you invest in your ASQ membership.

In each session, the specific value line items differed a bit, but there were some commonality among all six sessions. The top ASQ member value items were:

  1. Recognized Certification @ an average value of $2,583
  2. Networking @ an average value of $1,183
  3. Training @ an average value of $1,058
  4. Sections @ an average value of $1,042
  5. Opportunities for Involvement & Leadership @ an average value of $860
  6. Credibility with Customers @ an average value of $600
  7. Divisions/Forums @ an average value of $460
ASQ Value Item 2005-1 2005-2 2006-1 2006-2 2007-1 2007-2 Average/#
Recognized Certification 3000 1000 5000 1000 3000 2500 $2,583/6
Networking 2500 500 1000 2500 500 100 $1,183/6
Training 100 250 2500 2500 500 500 $1,058/6
Sections 500 500 1000 2500 250 1500 $1,042/6
Opportunities for Involvement & Leadership 1000 100 500 Included in Section 200 2500 $860/5
Credibility with Customers Not rated 250 100 0 750 250 $600/5
Divisions/Forums 500 Not rated 500 50 500 750 $460/5
Total ASQ Member Value Determined 8100 5150 14919 13550 9750 11550 $10,503/6

You might have noticed in the above information that no value was assigned to the World Conference; there is a reason for that. During the sessions, I specifically asked participants not to include the value of the annual conference. My reason for this is simple. ASQ has a membership of over 90,000 yet only one to two thousand attends the conference each year. While it is undeniable that the conference delivers huge value to all that attend, I wanted to determine the yearly sustainable, real dollar value that ASQ delivers to the lion’s share of its membership. Needless to say, your personal value could easily be much, much higher.

The next time a colleague, or your employer, asks about the value you receive from your ASQ membership, tell them that for every dollar invested, you get 50 back in value—now that’s value!

The key to safeguarding your organization’s future…is to research, embrace, and maximize…your member ROI.