June 23, 2008
An Association Should Be Better Than Its Members
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
In 1992, I began my association career working for a state association with 6 employees. I was the director of public affairs and de facto number 2. In those dinosaur days when I first started, we had no computer network (just some bizarre word processor things), our newsletter was basically typewritten on yellow pages, and we had around 800 members.
When I left in 1998, we had a state of the art (for the time) network, a useful database, a glossy magazine, a “USA Today”-like newsletter, a website, a regular education program, an insurance subsidiary, and nearly 1200 members.
I’m not writing this to brag. When I started I had no idea what an association was or what it could do. I’m writing to say that one of the main reasons we saw such success in those years was this:
My boss had saved nearly 10 years worth of ASAE’s ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT magazine. And I read every issue cover to cover.
The magazines themselves were professional, well-written, interesting and engaging. The people profiled and mentioned and quoted were lively, opinionated, and committed. I was fascinated. I didn’t read case studies from organizations with a lot more money than we had and think, “If only we could afford that.” Instead I read them and thought, “Hmm, could we do that?”
Ultimately, that magazine (which in those pre-Internet times, for all intents and purposes, WAS the association) gave me something to ASPIRE to. Between the ASAE magazine and my young hunger for books by Tom Peters, I caught a vision for what was possible, and a desire to take risks to make it happen.
What I learned from this experience is that ultimately, associations should be better than their members. Yes, in this particular case, I was working for an association and belonged to an association. But even if the association represents widget manufacturers, I believe the association should offer its members something to ASPIRE to.
I’m not engaging in the old “need vs. want” debate here. Instead, I’m simply calling on all associations to adopt higher standards in everything we do.
As the years have gone by and I’ve talked with a lot of people in a lot of different associations, I’ve noticed that an awful lot of associations seem to settle for “GOOD ENOUGH.” It’s a seductive place to rest; I have fought the same temptation. “Our members are widget manufacturers,” we say. “They won’t notice if our magazine has a tired outdated design. They won’t mind that our online store is clunky. They’ll accept if our training programs aren’t as progressive as they could be. They’ll be happy to participate.”
To which I say:
1) When a member reads your magazine, they are not comparing it to “other association magazines” or even trade magazines in your industry. They are comparing it to Fortune, Time, Fast Company, Business Week, Entertainment Weekly, or any other magazine they actually read because they want to. (And maybe they have already reached the point where they don’t want to read magazines at all … which is a topic for another post.)
2) When a member buys something from your website, they are comparing their experience to Amazon.
3) When a member goes to an education program or to a conference, they are comparing it to other things that they COULD have been doing with their time that week.
“GOOD ENOUGH” equals mediocrity. Mediocrity equals irrelevance.
Your members should feel PROUD to belong to you. To reach that point, it’s better to be PHENOMENAL at a few things than “so-so” at lots of things.
Reject mediocrity. Be phenomenal. Make your members proud.
Great post! I have been on the board of multiple associations, and the ones that “worked” kind of got this. The ones that didn’t…well, I’m not involved with them so much anymore.
I am going to forward this link to my current NSA chapter board. It will serve as a great reminder for the upcoming year.
Thanks!