July 8, 2005
The Advocacy Fallacy
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
In a thoughtful response to a post from yesterday, Rich Westerfield includes the following comment:
“…if there were no associations, who would do the lobbying? Online communities can design, adopt and promote standards and practices. They can share ideas freely and build upon them in ways associations are afraid to adopt. But at present, online communities do not represent a viable option for interaction with government and legal entities for the purposes of influencing law. Until that changes, associations are here to stay.”
This is not necessarily true.
On the left, MoveOn.org is the very picture of an online community forming to have an impact in the political sphere, and several others have formed on the right, like Progress for America.
Now, these are mass-market communities of individuals with broad leanings toward certain areas of the political spectrum, as opposed to the more specific niche interests usually represented by the typical association. However, there is certainly nothing stopping niche groups with a specific policy interest from forming ad-hoc online commmunities to promote it legislatively.
Well, that’s not exactly true: what’s stopping them usually is a combination of leadership, capability, and time. It’s one thing to want a specific policy outcome, it’s another thing to possess the willingness and know-how to step up to the plate and create a way to make it happen. As Rich also notes, “As leaders in online communities are not getting paid, is this a viable model for the long term?”
The answer is no; online communities seeking long-term viability will by necessity morph into physical organizations, with bylaws, governance, and, yes, paid staff, or at least paid “consultants.” Once they do, they’ll find themselves facing the same issues as old-school associations because they will, in fact, become old-school associations.
One of those issues is what I call the “advocacy fallacy.” Overall, in spite of the fact that alternatives exist, I think Rich is correct in that advocacy is one of the areas that associations generally excel in better than pure-online plays (though one should note that there are many old-school associations that do not “do” advocacy). The problem is that advocacy in and of itself is not a sustainable business model.
There simply aren’t enough people/businesses/organizations (whatever your membership niche) willing to pay for pure advocacy to provide the resources necessary to actually affect continuous policy outcomes.
It may be possible to find enough people willing to pay for “one thing,” and thus form a temporary ad-hoc coalition. In the long run, even if the desired outcome occurs, the affected niche is then left with one thing done.
What happens when they want something else done? (Which they will.) Well, they can go back to the original coalition members and try to put it together again (or form a new one). The problem is that not everyone will agree with this new goal. Some will outright disagree; some will think other priorities are more important.
And there you have an association. Associations exist to promote the interests of a common membership, recognizing that not all of the members agree with everything the association does. The real problem arises when an association only does advocacy. Because, as I noted above, there aren’t enough people willing to pay for it consistently. They either:
1) Disagree with certain parts of the overall agenda, or
2) More commonly, fail to truly grasp how the advocacy agenda really affects them or their business. They may agree; they may wish some particular policy outcome could be achieved; but the whole concept seems disconnected from their everyday concerns.
There are some exceptions, but they are mostly confined to industry segments comprised of a relatively few, relatively large (or wealthy) players willing to pay relatively high dues to sustain a common agenda.
For everyone else, you need to find ways to get people to support the association for reasons other than advocacy. This is where products come in (using “product” as a catchall for everything from actual products to training, certification, knowledge resources, etc.).
Today, many associations are fighting with competitors who are cherry-picking the products that associations used to be best at (from trade shows to publications to, yes, “communities”), leaving associations with advocacy. And competitors have not taken advocacy because they realize there is no money in it.
So these associations are being left crippled, whether they realize it yet or not. For their own long-term viability they need to continually recreate new products and services that build their membership so they can continue to afford to provide the advocacy that their non-profit mission calls for, and, as described above in the example about the problem with ad-hoc coalitions, their members need (whether they realize it yet or not).
This means associations need to get smarter about beating new competitors and about creating entirely new services. They need to get smarter about learning from their members/customers (which is more than having a board and committees comprised of members — governance is not product). They need to think like, yes, entrepreneurs — which means *staff* have to think (and be treated like) entrepreneurs.
HOWEVER — “services” in and of themselves do not mean success. Association membership is a strange thing; people join not only because they perceive a direct value but because by joining they desire to feel a part of a “community.” Associations that focus on building a book of business without providing the influence and community that are necessary for the association’s mission become simply another vendor, and they’d better be pretty good at whatever they do. A decade ago I saw several state organizations collapse because they thought they were in the business of providing discount telecommunications services. When that market dried up, so did theirs.
Back in the mid-90s, I doodled the following diagram as a way to remind myself of how to structure programs that appropriately balance. Yes, it’s very simplistic, and yes, the world has changed, but I still take a look at it now and then:
It’s a perfect square (and in its own way, a vicious circle). To sustain the organization — or to grow it — the sides must stay equal. “Influence” is the association’s perceived ability to “make a difference” for its members with external audiences (be that legislators, regulators, other organizations, or customers, the media, or whatever publics are important to the members). “Value” is the association’s perceived value through its products. Membership and resources are self-explanatory.
And the sphere in which the square resides — that’s the perceived “community.”
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