Category: membership

Reaching Detente With Your Chapters

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 3 Comments on Reaching Detente With Your Chapters

One of the truisms of association management is that national/chapter relationships are often…fraught. Even though we’re all ostensibly on the same side, it doesn’t always feel that way. Each side feels like the other is holding out on the them or trying to gain advantage, and the lack of trust that results makes it hard to communicate and to work together for the good of the organization as a whole and, ultimately, the profession or industry you serve.

How do you get past this?

I was recently chatting with some colleagues who were working through this exact problem. Details concealed, of course, but a little background. The organization has chapters in every state. As is common, some are quite strong and many are less so. The national provides staff support for chapters, but it’s in the form of two staff members who are both in DC (and in the eastern time zone).

The national wants to switch to an “account executive” model, dividing the country into regions and locating a regional chapter support manager in each of them. Those regional managers would still report to the national membership director, but they would work remotely and be charged solely with supporting the chapters in their region (so they would really work FOR the chapters).

Sounds great, right? Unless you’re a strong chapter that’s worried that this is a power grab by the national. And there is one chapter in particular with a strong, nationally-known executive and a full staff of their own. The national staff is concerned that she will lead the revolt that will doom their plan to help struggling chapters by providing better overall support and coordination.

What we realized is that this apparent negative could actually be a huge advantage. But it would all depend on the approach. Going to the strong chapter executive with, “This is the plan that we, the national, in our great and mighty wisdom, have devised for you, the poor little chapters, and you’ll accept it whether you want to or not!” would result in disaster. It turns her into an opponent immediately. “My chapter is just fine, and we don’t need your help/interference, thanks.”

But, if the national approached the strong chapter executive with this as a POSSIBLE idea to provide better support for the chapters that they’d very much like her to PILOT for them before they consider rolling it out to all the chapters, suddenly, we’re on the same side of the table working together to solve a problem.

Of course, the national has to be genuine. The program really IS a pilot and is open to modification – or even being dumped – based on the experiences of the beta group, which should probably consist of some or all of chapters in the strong chapter executive’s region. The staff person would remain at the national headquarters during the pilot, but he would switch his work schedule to better align with the region’s time zone. And if the beta testers came up with a better idea, the national would pilot that as well.

What kind of tiger-style management-fu can you deploy to start standing next to your chapters facing issues together rather than standing opposite them and *being* the issue?

You Say You Want a Revolution

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 8 Comments on You Say You Want a Revolution

There’s a bit of a fracas currently occurring around the selection of James Carville and Karl Rove as opening keynoters for the 2012 ASAE Annual Meeting. To me, it raises a much larger question: how does a member change the direction of the organizational ship, if s/he’s not happy with where it’s going?

In every protest movement, from the largest (the Occupy movement, justice for Trayvon Martin) to the current ASAE contretemps, there’s the initial, “I’m outraged! Who’s with me?” moment.

And the “rabble rousing” portion is vital, because you have to figure out how big your cohort is.

But you have to move on to campaign stage, or you just get mired in complaining.

There are two key questions any protest group must answer:

  • What do we really want? (aka, What would fix the problem or compensate for the harm?)
  • What are we willing to give up to get it?

Then you have to calculate your “n” to figure out how many supporters you need before it’s worth the institution’s time to pay attention.

So using the Carville/Rove situation, let’s look at some examples:

Small “n” resolution: Let’s say the group of displeased members wants, in the future, for keynote speakers to be selected by a representative group of members, or at least for that group of members to provide a list of choices or to vet ASAE’s list of choices. Since that would come at virtually no cost to ASAE, the group of members wouldn’t have to risk/threaten much, and the “n” required to support the proposal in order to get the institution to pay attention would be relatively small.

Large “n” resolution:  Let’s say the group of displeased members wants ASAE to provide an alternative keynoter or at least space and promotion if the disaffected group secures an alternative keynoter (maybe someone like Gwen Ifill?). That’s a significant cost, in money, hassle/logistics, and damage to reputation, so the group would need a large “n” that’s willing to threaten/risk something fairly major, like paying for the keynoter themselves, or canceling registrations and demanding a refund, in order to get the institution to pay attention.

But in the end, what each person has to ask her/himself is this: how much does this mean to me? Am I willing to die on this hill? And then put up, or shut up.

Super Swap Recap

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

About two weeks ago, ASAE-GW held the latest Super Swap. This one had a slightly different format: in the morning, we had three short presentations, each of which included some structured activity/discussion time, followed by a table topic networking lunch, followed by the more traditional concurrent swap sessions.

Kylee Coffman kicked off the day with a presentation about creativity. Best statements:

“All I want to be is someone who makes new things and thinks about them”

“I’m smart, I’m brave and I’m strong.”

Then she led us through the same word association exercise Shelly Alcorn used to help us kick off 2012 right, and, unsurprisingly, just about everyone was channeling spring and new beginnings.

Then I presented on “so long and thanks for all the fish.” For the exercise, I divided the room into four groups and gave them each a task regarding retired and retiring members:

  1. Create a category of membership that offers realistic benefits at a realistic price
  2. Plan a fundraising campaign that uses their skills, experience and contacts to good advantage
  3. Design a mentoring program that focuses on industry/profession skills and knowledge for young professionals
  4. Design a leadership mentoring program for volunteer leadership succession planning

Finally, Adele Cehrs helped us all think about opposition strategy. Our associations need to scan trends and plan in advance how we’re going to address big ones, negative or positive.

Her tips included:

  • Don’t ignore lies about your organization
  • Address misperceptions directly
  • Learn from negatives
  • Identify your own preconceptions
  • Understand your own weaknesses

She urged us to try to answer the question: “What are your competitors NOT talking about?”

The lunch discussions were a little bumpy because ASAE staff was trying to turn the rooms, and it took a long time for everyone to get through the lunch buffet line. Maybe box lunches next time?

In the afternoon, I chose the session on free and cheap tech tools, led by Rhea Steele. She, in turn, drew a lot of her content from Beth Z, aka “Your Nerdy Best Friend.” Rhea pulled together a great list of the tech tools people shared in the session that were in addition to Beth’s tools, and I’ll bet if you tweet to her, she’ll share them with you, too.

 

Do We REALLY Know What Our Members Need?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 3 Comments on Do We REALLY Know What Our Members Need?

For ONCE I was able to participate in #assnchat this week! KiKi was taking the week off, so Nikki Jeske (aka “Affiniscape“) hosted. Nikki did a great job, but I thought her closing question was particularly good:

[Q7] What’s one thing you could do TODAY to better serve your members? Go do it! #assnchat
— Affiniscape, Inc. (@affiniscape) January 10, 2012

And….there was silence. And this was in the midst of a hoppin’ #assnchat. Which I think was really informative. I don’t think we know the answer to that question. I think, if most of us association professionals were honest with ourselves, we’d admit that we’re so insulated from our members that we don’t know what they need. We know what WE THINK they need, but we don’t truly know what they think they need.

So my real A7 is: find ways to have more interaction w mem so I can answer that question from place of knowledge #assnchat
— Elizabeth Engel (@ewengel) January 10, 2012

Of course, that begs the further question: how? How do you – how do I – ensure that meaningful member interaction between large numbers of our members and large percentages of our staff takes place on a regular basis? And how do we capture the knowledge that results?

I don’t know the answer to this – but I damn well am going to try to find out.

“Done is the engine of more.”

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 7 Comments on “Done is the engine of more.”

A few months ago, I was having a discussion with some smart association peeps, and we got talking about the fact that, in membership organizations, it’s not so much that we fear failure for its own sake. What we really fear is criticism – from our colleagues and bosses, sure, but even more so from our members and boards.

Because of that, we’re change-averse, decision-averse, and completion-averse. If I keep working on a project forever, and never roll it out, no one can ever find anything wrong with it, right?

The thing is, all those partially completed projects that should’ve been done in 6 weeks but drag on for 6 months weigh us down. If it’s never finished, you never get to check that one off and move on to the next project or idea. You never even get to move on to the 1.2 version of the current project.

We get so caught up in the “everything has to be PERFECT” mindset that we shut out our members and their ideas and opinions, and make them passive consumers rather than active partners.

What if, rather than waiting until we had everything just so to roll out our new member service, we went to our members with: “This is a new service we’re considering. We don’t have all the kinks worked out yet, so we know some of you will want to wait to check it out until it’s in a more completed form. And that’s fine. But for those of you who are willing to try something that may not be 100% functioning yet, we’d love it if you could test it and give us your feedback so we can make sure that, once it is fully ready, it truly meets your needs and is easy for you to use.”?

What would that world look like? How much more engaged would your members be? How would that change their perception of ownership in your association? How would that impact relationships between staff, members and board? How much faster could you move? How much more could you provide for your members?

Money, Money, Money, MO-NEY

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

I tend to believe that if the same topic or issue or idea or person or whatever keeps showing up in your life, you should probably snap to: something is trying to get your attention.

For me, lately, that’s been the concept of non-dues revenue. I heard a good presentation on this, received an opportunity from an association colleague, presented on this topic myself (and will be doing so again in a week), had the chance to visit one of our non-dues revenue partners at their home office, and of course, this morning there was a Bisnow event on this issue (that I couldn’t attend – anyone go? how was it?).

Here’s the thing: as associations, we can get revenue from two places – our members, and people who aren’t our members.

According to continuing research out of Decision to Join (none of which I can find now that I need it, of course, but updates appear in Associations Now all the time), members whose employers pay their dues remain likely to drop membership if their employer no longer pays. That can come as a result of employers cutting costs, or as a result of people losing their jobs – and with reported unemployment hovering around 9% and real unemployment probably more in the 20-25% range, that’s a lot of people.

That leaves us all looking for alternative sources of revenue, both from an altruistic perspective (we want to burden our members as little as possible, while still providing products and services that meet their needs) and pure self-interest (you never want too much of your revenue coming from any one source – too risky).

That’s where non-dues revenue comes in. But it’s not all created equal. It comes down to a value calculation: is the amount of effort required, both from the association and the non-dues revenue partner, commensurate with the value everyone will receive? And “everyone” includes the association, its members, and the partner.

It’s easy to be distracted by promises of lots of cash from something that has NOTHING to do with the purpose of your association. Or to make a bad calculation about how much time something is going to take, or how much revenue it’s going to return. Or to try to squeeze a partner too hard. Or become myopically focused on the association’s (revenue) needs and not think enough about what the nice partner who’s giving you all that money needs.

But the best partnerships, the ones that endure and make everyone happy (as opposed to making everyone annoyed and pissed off), are the partnerships where everyone’s needs are being met, not necessarily equally but certainly equivalently. Which is a great thing to remember when a vendor comes dangling a shiny new opportunity in front of you – or when you’re doing it yourself for a potential corporate supporter.

User Innovation v. Producer Innovation

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

A recent piece in MIT’s Technology Review by Eric Von Hippel (excerpt freely available, subscription required to read the entire piece) on the topic of the sources of innovation got me thinking about innovation and associations.

The innovation faith is being widely preached in the association world these days, and many of us have converted. But that brings with it a certain amount of pressure, namely, to come up with great new ideas (since that’s really what’s at the root of innovation).

But there’s hope: YOU don’t have to come up with all the great new ideas in order for your association to be innovative. You just have to be open to new ideas, recognize them, and be ready to pursue them, no matter what the source.

How does that play out for associations? Technically, we’re all in existence because of our members (remember them?), to serve them and their professional or industry needs.

Does your association allow room for innovation, aka great new ideas, from the people who actually use what you produce – you know, your members and other audiences?

What mechanisms do you have in place to solicit their ideas on a regular basis? No, not just the board – the “regular” rank and file members. We all tend to be guilty of the fallacy of composition when it comes to our boards, including the board members themselves, but in reality they tend to speak mostly for their own needs and not be some sort of objective, impartial voice of the membership as a whole.

Once ideas bubble up from the membership, what happens next? Do you do anything with them? Do you even reserve the capacity (time, money, staff, other resources) to do anything with them?

Regardless of the outcome (because not all new ideas are necessarily good), how do you let people know what happened and why?

The thing is, your members are a lot closer to what you’re doing and producing, ostensibly for their benefit. Why not ask them what they think about how you can make your offerings better for them, and then try to do something beneficial with what they tell you?

Stop Asking for Information You Already Have

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment on Stop Asking for Information You Already Have

There’s this marketing company out there that provides tons of great free and paid content.They send me notices about new, really interesting-sounding white papers and studies they’re releasing (or promoting for others) for FREE at least several times a month. Hot topics, actual research, well-designed materials. And did I mention FREE?

Yet I almost never download them.

Why?

Because almost every time I click the link to download the latest awesome-sounding white paper they ask for ALL my contact information. All REQUIRED fields. Again. And again. And again.

I know for a fact they already have all my contact information.

Since I’m not a paid subscriber, there is no option to have an account.

But couldn’t they set a cookie on my machine or use name and email matching to determine that they already “know” me? And if there is no match on name and email, ask me for complete contact information at that point?

How does this apply to associations?

Most of us have – I think, I hope – gotten to the point where we don’t repeatedly ask our members for the same demographic information over and over. We might ask them to confirm/update their information on a set cycle, but we don’t ask them to start from scratch and provide full name, company, title, address, email, phone, fax, URL, mobile, certifications, degrees, FB and Twitter handles EVERY time they come to us for anything.

But what about “frequent flyers” who AREN’T your members? Check your abandon rates in your web stats program, and beware of putting unnecessary hurdles in people’s way. They will walk – and get annoyed at your organization in the process. Trust me on this one.

Be Human

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

There’s a great story that’s been making the rounds of the Interwebs about a Southwest pilot who held a plane so that a grandfather could make it to the bedside of his dying grandchild.(Get the full scoop here.)

The big thing that jumps out at me in this tale is the contrast between the way the TSA agents behaved – mindlessly following the rules – and the way the Southwest personnel behaved – using their judgment to do the right thing.

The thing is, the TSA agents aren’t allowed to use their judgment – they HAVE to blindly adhere to the regulations, no matter what. They aren’t empowered. The Southwest employees, on the other hand, are. Now I’ll bet that if TSA chief John Pistole had been there in that terminal at LAX, he would’ve given the security agents the OK to give Mr. Dickinson priority. But he wasn’t, so they couldn’t.

I hope the applicability of this situation to associations is clear, but just in case, let me spell it out for you: your senior staff can always make exceptions based on member needs and doing what’s right, but that’s totally unhelpful, since they are rarely the ones dealing with the immediate need in the moment. If your line staff members aren’t empowered to make decisions and do what they need to do in the moment to make things right for a member without worrying about being punished afterward for not following the rules, any statements your organization makes about being member-focused or providing excellent member service are so much bullshit.