As associations adapt to challenges ushered in by the global pandemic, new research by Personify provides a guidepost for strategic decision-making.

Looking at 2020 in the rearview mirror, it’s easy to see that associations faced unprecedented changes, disruptions and threats to their operating models. (Understatement of the century, anyone?) But gazing into a crystal ball at 2021 and beyond, it’s difficult to determine what shifts are permanent and what newly adopted practices and behaviors are here to stay.

To better understand what may lie ahead, Personify conducted a survey of nearly 1000 association and nonprofit members and staff to learn how they are adapting to these shifts. In a series that begins with this article, we’ll highlight key areas of concern with both the short- and long-term in mind.

Here are some of the high-level takeaways from Personify’s research:

Your digital networks are more crucial now than ever before. 

More than half of all survey respondents shared how important it is for their associations to provide both digital networking and a digital community for its members. While associations have historically leaned on routine in-person meet-ups to court potential members, a successful association has to explore new avenues, such as networking in the digital space.

While productive and meaningful connections can take more time to navigate and nurture in a virtual world, people are adapting and finding themselves more engaged than before. According to Personify’s research, 48 percent of members said they were more engaged in 2020 than in 2019.

“That feeling of being seen and understood gets worse when you’re working remotely, so companies will compensate for that; they’ll start ramping up their recognition and rewards programs,” David Johnson, the principal analyst for employee experience at Forrester Research, told Fast Company. “Companies are going to invest quite a bit in up-skilling managers and investing in technology that will help them better understand employee engagement when working remotely.”

Similarly, investing in tools that complement virtual planning and events can benefit people not only in the interim but in coming years when many might opt into remote gatherings as a choice, rather than out of necessity. And with the adoption and application of these new services and skills, planners can empathetically and productively launch hybrid in-person/virtual member engagement.

Virtual engagement is here to stay. 

Even when it’s safe to return to in-person events, only a minority of members surveyed want to engage in them—merely 15 percent of members said they would want a mostly or entirely in-person event (under the assumption that it is safe) in the second half of this year, with 50 percent of members preferring a mostly or entirely virtual event, and 33 percent preferring a combination of virtual and in-person for 2021. This could be attributed to the fact that virtual engagement is seeing a more widespread and welcome adoption.

Once we can safely return to in-person gatherings, the digital shift won’t disappear. It’s going to remain a constant within networking communities. Rather than focus on ways to phase digital settings out, a forward-thinking association will discern how to maintain its online presence while still conducting in-person happenings in the months and years to come.

“Anyone who is planning to host an in-person event in 2021 should also be prepared to have a virtual back-up plan, or plan a hybrid event, as there will be many unknowns throughout the year and no guarantee that events will be safe by 2021,” Gianna Gaudini, Director, Global Head of Events at Softbank Investment Advisors (Vision Fund), wrote for Thrive Global.

“Smart planners will communicate early and often with attendees to get an idea of attendee sentiment around live vs. virtual gatherings, and what will make attendees feel 1) safe and 2) part of a communal experience.”

Career skills and certifications still matter. 

This was cited as the top reason among members to continue to engage with their association (46 percent very important for members), followed closely by being able to network with others (45 percent) and belong to an organization that advocates for their industry (44 percent).

LinkedIn reported that in the first week of April 2020, people watched 1.7 million hours of content designed to teach a new skill on LinkedIn Learning, compared to 560,000 hours watched during the first week of January 2020, before the pandemic hit. That’s triple the amount of time spent watching skills-centered content once people were isolating. It’s evident that people are gravitating toward learning new skills and achieving certifications. Associations should tap into this by finding out what content members are interested in and providing relevant programming.

“Most of us have new skills we aspire to learn, but chipping away when we’re stuck at home requires a superhuman act of willpower,” Taylor Jacobson, founder and CEO of Focusmate, told Fast Company. “We’re used to relying on in-person structures—go to a dance studio, take a yoga class, meet your guitar teacher. These structures provide the accountability to actually show up, invest time, and make progress.”

Association membership remains valuable. 

Many members said that belonging to an association has either become more important (44 percent) or is as important (48 percent) as it was pre-pandemic. Associations Now reported that a study published in April by strategic research firm Association Laboratory, Inc. found that 57 percent of association leaders reported more investments in online education, 52 percent reported exploring virtual conferences and 62 percent reported plans to digitize their content.

Dean West, FASAE, president and founder of Association Laboratory, told Association Now that the concept of digital membership is hardly new, but interest has accelerated because of the pandemic. He suggests analyzing membership, cost and returns on investment for programs, dropping the ones that don’t yield meaningful results.

“You can’t look at a crisis only as a threat,” West said. “You have to consider it as an opportunity to create energy toward strategic change, because we know the crisis will eventually subside.”
In short, it’s not about sitting on the sidelines and waiting for this to pass, which could lead to associations running the risk of losing their relevance in their members’ professional and personal lives.

Stay tuned for the remainder of our series, where we highlight how smart associations are preparing for the journey ahead. And while we can’t predict the future, we hope this series will be a good starting point for making lasting improvements.

This article is the first in an 8-part series focused on studying the shifting association landscape and how smart organizations are planning for both short- and long-term challenges–and solving them. Backed by original research conducted by Personify and brought to life through the stories of association leaders who are meeting these challenges in real-time, this series is intended to serve as a guidepost for associations who are reacting to fundamental market shifts and proactively building a better future for their organizations. Sign up for Personify’s webinar on Jan 27 that will walkthrough this research in detail.

AuSAE Premium Alliance Partner Advanced Solutions International (ASI), a leading global provider of software and services for associations and non-profits, today announced that its Chairman & CEO Bob Alves and President & CTO Don Robertson have written an important new update to their 2015 book, The Association Exec’s Guide to Improving Organisational Performance.  Learn more here.  

The 4^th edition of the book provides guidance for associations that need to objectively evaluate systems on the market today and understand the key differences between Cloud-based Engagement Management System (EMS) platforms that are specifically designed to meet the needs of associations versus generic CRM-based software.   

Alves and Robertson share case studies and valuable insights learned from working with nearly 4,000 clients worldwide.  The book offers best-practice advice Association Executives can use right now to:  

• Harness the Continuous Performance Improvement Machine
• Access and optimise a single source of truth
• Mitigate risk and avoid project failure

The Association Exec’s Guide to Improving Organisational Performance 

The book is available for a limited time from the company’s website as a free download for association executives.

The truth is, each member of your association is clearly worth more than the dues they pay. They provide man hours, word-of-mouth marketing, and emotional and creative insight that keeps your association moving forward.

But there is a benefit to learning how much each member contributes to the financial goals of your association over the lifetime of their membership.

Once you have put a dollar amount on the monetary value of your members, you will be set to give them better discounts, customized service, and valuable offers to keep them engaged. Tasio created a simple spreadsheet to figure this calculation out yourself which you can download here.

NOTE: The above workbook is not to be used in the place of professional accounting or financial advice. The Lifetime Member Value worksheet is designed to give you a rough estimate of your member’s worth over the lifetime of their membership. For a more detailed breakdown, speak to your accountant or financial advisor.

5 STEPS FOR CALCULATING THE VALUE OF YOUR MEMBERS

There are several things you need to know before you can do this simple calculation. The most important being that you will working with a historical data set—a set of year-long data where the outcomes (lost or retained) of the members is known.

Step 1: Know the Numbers

Work with your team to gather this information, which may include IT data, financial data, and employment data. You will need to know:

Total number of last years’ members with member loss data. You will need to create a historical data set of everyone who was retained or lost from a year-long period before now. The closer to today, the better this data will be.

Total dues and non-dues revenue for historical data set. This will be split into two sections on the workbook, and will need to be included for everyone on the historical data set.

Total cost to service a member over historical data period. This includes salary and cost of membership departments, publication, and marketing and promotional advertising costs. It also includes any monetary or financial benefits members receive. It may also include other elements, depending on your unique association offerings.

Average lifetime of membership. You find this by reviewing your historical data set for members who were lost, or “churned.” For each member that was churned over the period of your historical data set, calculate how many years they were members. Then create an average for the entire group of churned members.

Step 2: Find the Average Cost Per Member

For your historical data set, you need to take the total cost to service a member and divide it by the total number of members (including those who left, or were “churned”). This is the total amount of funds that you spent per each member last year.

Step 3: Calculate Expected Lifetime Revenue

After you have created your average lifetime for membership, you will multiply this by the average dues and non-dues of revenue that each member generates each year. In the Association Retention Workbook, the calculation is done for you.

Step 4: Calculate Lifetime Cost to Service Member

We will also do a similar calculation for the cost to service a member of their lifetime with your association. This is done by multiplying the average lifetime of a member by the yearly service cost per member.

Step 5: Calculate Lifetime Revenue of Membership

By subtracting the cost of servicing a member from the total revenue over the lifetime of a member, you can see whether you are spending too much on servicing or if you have room to offer discounts and other financial incentives to increase your retention.

The revenue minus your costs is your break even point—this is the highest amount of discount you can give before you are making zero dollars towards your association’s goals.

ACCORDING TO THE IMPACTS VALUE STUDY, A NEW MEMBER TO YOUR ASSOCIATION BRINGS IN AN AVERAGE YEARLY INCOME OF $114 IN REVENUE, WITH A RENEWING MEMBER BRINGING IN A YEARLY INCOME OF $189 BY YEAR 5 OF THEIR MEMBERSHIP. THE COSTS FOR RETAINING THESE MEMBERS IS INVERSE, WITH NEW MEMBERS COSTING BETWEEN $20-$25 EACH YEAR AND RENEWING MEMBERS COSTING BETWEEN $4-$5 EACH YEAR.IMPACTS VALUE STUDY, COLEENDILEN.COM (10/14/17)

What About the Value of Social Impact for Your Association? 

Despite the calculation above, you might realize that there are some reasons why you would be willing to go over the break even point on the behalf of your members. For many associations, there are intangible benefits from offering some programs, resources or discounts.

These are a valuable part of identifying the value of your members, and can be considered as you are using these calculations to make decisions about where to trim or increase your spending.

Your Members are Valuable. Retention is Key.

Every member represents a huge investment of time, effort, money, and resources on behalf of your organization. And while all members are valuable, retained members bring in the most revenue for the least cost.

If your career hasn’t progressed as you’d hoped in 2020, focus on turning the page in the year ahead. Here’s some advice from a career counselor with an association insider’s point of view.

Between event cancellations, declining membership, and job losses, there has been no shortage of setbacks for association professionals in 2020. Combine that with specific professional challenges everyone encounters from time to time, such as failing a certification exam or missing out on a promotion, and a lot of people are facing career obstacles at the moment.

Sharon Givens, president-elect of the National Career Development Association and a licensed professional counselor and career coach, says a career setback can feel much like losing a loved one. And plenty of people are grieving right now.

“During the pandemic, a recurring theme is that people are dealing with loss—loss of job, loss of daily activity, loss of time with family members,” says Givens, who is also CEO of the career consulting firm Training Visions.

Although it’s common to struggle with negative feelings when your career takes a hit, you can find your way back to a success story. Givens has a few tips for starting fresh in the new year:

If you feel comfortable sharing publicly, do so. Social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter are full of honest sharing about career struggles. Some users who have lost their jobs have modified their profiles to show that they’re available for work. That kind of candor can reflect well on you. “You’re showing a level of vulnerability and just really being transparent—‘I’m available, I’m willing’—and it could show some employers that you’re somewhat of a risk taker,” Givens says.

Don’t be afraid to find another direction. With a job loss in particular, some may feel the desire to switch gears. Givens says the pandemic could be a good time for a career pivot if you have another area of interest. She advises clients that “we’re all going to be forced to change. So, let’s see what you have now that you can contribute. What else would you need to make yourself more viable? Then, let’s move in that direction.” She says a job loss can be an opportunity to refresh your skill set by pursuing additional education or certification. “For example, if you’re lacking in maybe technical skill, then you might need to look at how you go back and enhance those technical skills,” she says.

Find motivation in the things that went right. After losing a promotion or failing a certification exam, many people focus on the failure rather than the successes along the way. “When we experience a loss, we forget everything else that has gone well,” Givens says. “So how do you reach back and look at all the things that you’ve accomplished?” She points to the work of the late organizational consultant William Bridges, who focused on transition management and emphasized the importance of looking for new opportunities. People who suffer a setback often “don’t have the motivation because they’re focusing solely on ‘I’ve lost, I’ve lost, I’ve lost,’” she says. “But anytime you have a loss, there’s an opportunity for gain, which is what most people don’t focus on.”

Don’t take the setback too personally. Ultimately, a lot of the setbacks of the past year aren’t really anyone’s fault—and that’s important to remember. “I ask my clients: How personal are you going to take this loss? Do you think this loss is specifically about you? Or is it more about what’s happening in this current time?” she says. “I think that gives people a different perspective.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Ernie Smith.

As a tumultuous year comes to a close, reckoning with burnout is understandable. A productivity expert offers some guidance on ways to put a few things in order and make more time for yourself.

That persistent feeling of burnout? It’s real and has been exacerbated by the pandemic more than at any time in the past several years. A study by FlexJobs and Mental Health America found that 75 percent of workers have experienced burnout recently, and 40 percent of those polled said it was a direct result of the pandemic.

Carson Tate, CEO of Working Simply, had her own personal bout with burnout a couple of years ago and understands its impact, especially on women. “Even though it’s 2020, women bear a disproportionate load of household and child responsibilities,” Tate said.

The pandemic has added to that burden. Women are “overstretched and overwhelmed,” she said, and many are leaving their careers. With the loss of support structures like schools and day care, “it’s almost impossible to do it all without cracking,” she said.

More than one in four women are contemplating downsizing their careers or leaving the workplace entirely, according to a 2020 Women in Workplace study by McKinsey and LeanIn.

Tate recommends four key strategies for overcoming end-of-year burnout after a year that has stretched almost everyone’s patience, mental capacity, and focus:

Conduct a meeting audit. Go through your calendar and if a meeting doesn’t have an agenda, ask yourself: Why am I attending this meeting? Respond to the meeting organizer and ask: What is the meeting objective, and how can I support you in achieving it? This message puts them on notice that if there isn’t a good reason for you to be there, you don’t need to be there.

Do you play a role in the meeting? If there is an agenda for the meeting, but you’re not on it to make a specific decision or as an influencer or a subject matter expert, and you won’t be responsible for any execution of goals, that’s a great opportunity to just say no. Time is a commodity, and making sure you are really thoughtful about investing your time is essential.

Take intentional breaks. Put a five-minute break—with a reminder—on your calendar to reduce your cognitive load. Walk up and down a flight of stairs, flip through a favorite magazine, listen to a song. Disengage, disconnect, and let your brain rest.

Winterize your task list. What tasks should stop? Ask: Does this task generate revenue? Is it aligned to a strategic goal or priority? Is it a core requirement of my job? If it’s not, stop doing it. Now assess what you need to start. Is there a new project or initiative that you haven’t broken out into action items? Capture the action items and put them in a task management tool. What tasks need to be continued? If it aligns with revenue generation, a strategic goal, or is a core responsibility of your job, keep doing it.

Research has shown that working longer hours does not equate to increased productivity. A Stanford University study found that productivity declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours per week. And those who work up to 70 hours a week are only getting the same amount of work done as those who put in 55 hours.

As 2020 comes to a close, it’s time to make time a priority and arrange tasks so they are manageable, achievable, and necessary to enter the new year refreshed and ready to engage.

“You’re a human being,” Tate said, “not a human doing.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Lisa Boylan.

Want to know why members left? Ask them. Effective exit surveys can give you insight into what your association can do to better retain current and future members. Here are a few best practices.

What’s worse than a member leaving your association? Not knowing why. With an exit survey, organizations can turn their lapsed members into valuable sources of information on what they can do better.

But not all organizations take advantage of this opportunity. Jayne Tegge, member engagement manager for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), says she has received only one exit survey from companies she has worked for. “And I’ve worked at a lot of places,” Tegge says.

For smaller organizations with limited staff, it’s probably just not a priority, she says. But if you make it one, you can gain insights on the state of your organization. Use these tips to build an exit survey that will tell you what you need to know.

KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE

Members who are on their way out probably won’t want to sit through a hundred questions. Promote participation by asking about a dozen questions that cover the basics. Questions should include:

• Why are you discontinuing your membership?
• What did you like best about your member experience? What did you like least?
• How can our organization improve the membership experience?
• What could we have done to keep you as a member?
• Do you plan to rejoin in the future?

The key is to understand exactly why they’re leaving and what they think you can do better.

AVOID LEADING QUESTIONS

You won’t have a clear road map for improvement without truthful responses. Make sure that questions are worded simply and without bias and that they don’t suggest an answer. For example, don’t ask, “Do you think our low-cost membership dues are fair?” Instead ask, “What do you think about our membership dues?”

If you create multiple-choice questions, make sure the list of answers covers the entire spectrum of possible reactions, from very positive to very negative, instead of putting a positive spin on each potential response. Make sure to add an “other” option as well to offer more flexibility.

ALLOW ANONYMITY

Another way to ensure honest responses is to keep participants anonymous; SIOP follows this strategy, Tegge says. Don’t ask for any identifying information, and make sure you’re not requesting details that are too specific, such as the exact date the respondent joined.

On the technical side, services such as SurveyMonkey let you decide whether to track and store identifiable respondent information.

LEAVE ROOM FOR WRITTEN RESPONSES

Use some open-ended questions—including a final question such as “Is there anything more you would like to add?”—to allow respondents to expand on their thoughts.

“That’s why we have open-ended questions, so they can tell us exactly what they want to tell us,” Tegge says. “That is where the content we want is located, because that is an individual’s personal experience.”

GIVE LAPSED MEMBERS A BREATHER

Wait a few months after members lapse to send your survey so they have a chance to spend time away from your organization and reflect on their experiences. Plus, you don’t want to contact lapsed members too frequently, or they might tune you out.

At SIOP, members receive an exit survey 12 months after their membership ends. Three weeks after that, the organization sends a reminder to complete it, and lapsed SIOP members have a month to submit their answers. This generous window of time increases the number of responses—and the more you get, the more data you have to work with.

“Some think, ‘I’m going to do that, but I don’t have time today.’ So they might do it in five days. Then we have all the stragglers who totally forget about the survey,” Tegge says. “So when we send the reminder at the three-week mark, we get a whole other blast of people.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Michael Hickey.

The upside of the shift to virtual platforms in the past several months is that members are interacting more with associations digitally. This is providing a quick roadmap of member preferences. Speakers at the ASAE Technology Exploration Conference explained why that’s key.

Members are engaging now more than ever through online channels like virtual events, online community discussions, social media posts, surveys, and online education platforms—which is creating an abundance of data to mine to improve the member experience.

A session on maximizing fast data at the ASAE TEC Virtual conference last week covered the benefits of collecting fast data and how to implement it to help with member recruitment, retention, and renewal.

“Now more than ever there is an uptick in people using data. We’re in a new, changing environment, and we can’t rely on history because the landscape has changed,” said Julie Sciullo, CEO of Association Analytics. “Fast data is real-time data that allows data to stream together to make rapid business decisions.”

Association-specific information from Acumen shows that since March of this year, there has been a 42 percent increase in overall use of data and a 70 percent increase in executive usage. The rapid shift to an all-virtual environment has amped up the use of data, which is providing an opportunity to engage with members more effectively than ever before.

In other words, the data tells the story.

THE NEXT WAVE OF DATA

Associations have long relied on traditional ways of determining member engagement by longevity, volunteering, meeting attendance, and publishing articles, said session co-presenter Tom Lyons, director of IT at the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The increased use of data in recent months has allowed associations to “look outside the sandbox at the next wave of data.”

Social media streams are incredibly fast. “We get a snapshot of people engaging with us in the moment,” Lyons said. But it’s essential to use that data and not just have it, he advised. And applications are maturing to include more data insights, which makes reporting more accessible to all staff members, not just IT professionals.

SERVE MEMBERS BETTER

The ASM team challenged themselves to serve members better by looking at behavioral and demographic data that members share as they interact with the organization through online communities, social media, virtual meetings, and more. This lets ASM staff observe what members are engaging with and what they are specifically interested in, providing better, more relevant information for making business decisions, Lyons said. For example, a member profile is only as up to date as when it was filled out. Priorities and interests change, which is why the behavioral interaction becomes even more important.

Sciullo recommends online communities as a great starting point to gather fast data. “It’s certainly one of the most dynamic and forward-thinking” ways to find out what members are thinking, she said. The chat function in virtual meetings is another way to collect data on what is important to members, as well as voice calls and messages. All that data can be used to drive value back to members, Sciullo said.

Members are providing a customized data trail of what their preferences are through their digital interactions with associations. This is giving associations the chance to respond better—and faster—to their needs.

“We really want to deliver what our members want, when they want it, and on the channels they want it,” Sciullo said. “Now is a better time than ever to move forward in this capacity.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Lisa Boylan.

The popularity of podcasting means you might have to double down on the strategy when bringing your message to the world on the way to making an impact. Read on for some podcasting tips.

Podcasting is on the rise in a big way, which is a double-edged sword, if you think about it.

It’s growing really fast among both creators and listeners, which means that not only is the audience getting bigger, but also the competition. So, if you’re getting your start in the field now, you might find it a little tough to get going.

However, you can still succeed. Check out these four tips to see how you can make podcasting work for your association:

Consider the strategy. Simply recording a bunch of audio and hoping for the best is not an effective strategy. Much like the stories you might produce as a part of your content strategy, podcast content needs to be well-considered and properly thought through. National Public Radio, which produces a whole lot of popular podcasts, has a well-organized guide, targeted at students, that helps discuss basic ideas for strategizing, brainstorming, and structuring a podcast. Even if you aren’t a student, you might find the guide handy.

Don’t lead with your brand. Ultimately, people are listening to a good podcast for the same reason they read a good article. They want to be informed. While there may be a lot of reasons you want to put your brand out front, the brand should ultimately come second to creating a piece of content that people want to keep turning back to. “As you develop your series, consider topics you and your audience can be passionate about, even if it’s only tangentially associated with the brand,” Masthead Media cofounder Amanda Pressner Kreuser wrote in a blog post for Inc. “Think about it: Would you want to use your precious commute time listening to one, long-form brand promotion; or would you rather hear compelling, engaging content?”

The vocals really matter. Really. Misstatements or poor phrasings that might be OK in normal speech can drive podcast listeners crazy—and might scare them off from future episodes. So what’s a budding podcaster to do? Per Podcasting Hacks, you might just want to take things slow and embrace a degree of silence. “For me, and some of you out there, speaking quickly is a defense mechanism because we’re afraid of losing someone’s attention,” podcaster Salvador Briggman wrote in his post. “You shouldn’t be spewing out words, like you’re a fervent talk show host. You should be speaking TO the listeners, like they are your friend. That’s how you’ll engage them.” If you’re not a podcast voice, don’t be afraid to use a hired gun, either. In her Inc. piece, Pressner Kreuser notes that hosts with strong followings often have the ability to sell a message.

Promotion matters, too. Technology firm Cision, best known for running PR Newswire, says that simply putting a podcast online isn’t enough to ensure that it will succeed. “As a content producer you have no one to blame [but] yourself if no one consumes your content,” the company’s Oscar Duran explains. “This goes into the planning and research. You could have the best hour of content ever produced, but if you’re not pushing it out across the social platforms where your target audience spends their time, then it doesn’t matter how good it is.” He adds that a poorly produced podcast can even succeed with the right level of promotion.

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Ernie Smith.

The pandemic has created challenges for professionals who wish to maintain their association certifications. What members need will vary across professions, but these five tips can help you assess how to help them.

Of the many things shaken up by the pandemic this year, a specific pain point is emerging for association members: professional credentials.

With in-person meetings on hold and job situations altered, certification renewal is more difficult now. But for associations that want to help members maintain their certifications, “there’s really not going to be one kind of blanket solution,” says consultant Mickie Rops, CAE.

She points out two examples: healthcare employees, who currently have jobs but little time because of the extra work they’re doing to fight this disease, and those who have lost their jobs and have the time to work on certifications but may not be able to financially invest in continuing education.

“I think that the biggest thing would be to find out what the members’ struggles are,” Rops says. “They may be obvious, but for some, I don’t know if they’re obvious.”

She offers a few considerations for associations as they move into 2021:

Explore whether you can change the rules for renewal. Right now, circumstances may cause members to miss renewal deadlines that they otherwise would have hit—particularly if their pandemic workload is unusually heavy, as in the medical and education fields. In such cases, it may be worth considering whether to extend renewal timelines. But Rops urges caution: “If you’re accredited and you have established policies and you’re held to those, you’ve got to be more careful about just changing things,” she says.

Offer a hiatus or grants to those with financial hardships. Rops suggests offering out-of-work members an inactive status for their certifications; once they return to work, they can become active again. Another option is to start a grant program to help cover member expenses. “I do have some clients that are seeking grants and being pretty successful in it,” she says.

Add flexible elements. Certain renewal requirements, such as attendance at in-person meetings, don’t make sense at the moment. Additionally, Rops notes that many people working remotely for the first time may find it difficult to focus, so virtual events may not be the answer for everyone. “Attention span right now is at an all-time low because of all the distractions and all the people that have both two adults in the house, working at home, and then the kids” that may need help with schooling, she says. While virtual learning events might make sense for some learners, others may do better with looser formats that allow them to learn at their own pace.

Look into microcredentialing. One way to reach members who may not have the time to invest in a full certification is microcredentialing. (One example is the National Education Association, which is highlighting microcertifications relevant to the current moment—on technology integration, cultivating socially just environments, and cultural competency.) Rops, a strong advocate for microcredentialing, says that this approach may be particularly effective in this environment. “Right now especially, you can’t be expecting someone to put 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 years into something,” she says. “Break it down, so they can start getting some immediate learning and/or credentialing.”

Consider building or refreshing a program now. Rops says that despite the disruption that many organizations are facing, associations have an opportunity to make lasting changes to an existing credentialing program—or to start a new one. “In a time of recession and things like that, that’s when people need education and credentialing,” she says. “So if associations can afford it, now’s the time, because it really is when your members need to reskill and upskill the most.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Ernie Smith.

Many associations are concerned that they can’t provide a pre-COVID-19 experience for the foreseeable future. One association’s recommendation: Get over it.

Joy Davis, CAE, had had it.

This has been a rough year for associations, of course, and a lot of the emotional toll has crept into their marketing. Davis, managing director of member products at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), saw the worst of it in meetings communications. We’re sorry we can’t see you in person. This won’t be our preferred member experience, but…

“All through the year, I saw really terrible messaging coming out of associations,” she says. “I’m like, why are you saying that to your members?”

Davis funneled her exasperation into an essay, “Normal Is Over(rated)—For Now,” published last month at the Velvet Chainsaw blog. The heart of her argument is that COVID-19 has prompted too many associations to engage in wishful thinking about what’ll happen without a pandemic, instead of accepting the situation as it is. That’s led to what she calls the “apology meeting.”

“We are telling our people that no matter what they do, it will never be as good as what we did before, and we cannot wait to get back to doing things that way, without even trying what we could be doing now,” Davis says.

In other words, associations have found another way back into that mindset we all thought we’d banned: But we’ve always done it that way. “It was not just the communication, it was this failure to imagine something different,” says AAPS Executive Director Tina Morris.

AAPS’s most aggressive act of resistance on this front involved its annual meeting. Like just about every association meeting in 2020, it moved its annual conference, PharmSci 360, online. But unlike a lot of associations, it held the line on registration fees. Instead of marketing around interactions that couldn’t happen anyway, it highlighted the amount of content it had to offer and widened the time frame within which attendees could experience it.

“If you were to go back and look at all of our marketing messaging, in every single email there is a sentence that says ‘PharmSci 360 on your schedule,’” says Davis.

This isn’t just a matter of marketing differently, Morris says. An “apology” mindset has a way of creeping into how associations think about their future plans and whether their decisions reflect the current reality or a wished-for one. At AAPS, that’s required some conversations with volunteer leaders about shifting their mindsets.

“Reinforcement was very important because we had different leaders who at different times during the year had challenges,” Morris says. “We were trying to be very deliberate as a leadership team about how we communicated the degree of change that was happening. We do realize that different people have different comfort levels.”

In her article, Davis explains some of the upsides of getting out of the apology mindset: opportunities to better understand a changing market, the new kinds of data that you’re gathering in a virtual environment, and the new ways of communicating that members are discovering and using. “Get a little excited about what you can do right now,” she writes. “Start every conversation from a place that encourages creativity and problem-solving. Ask your members to renew because you’re doing stuff that helps them where they are today.”

Davis recalls that one of the mantras at a previous association where she worked was “don’t get into a conversation about pricing—talk about quality.” That mindset kept AAPS from holding an apology meeting in 2020, but it’s also provided a north star for getting through the pandemic—it trusts that the value of what the association provides is more meaningful than the delivery method. And it trusts that members will pay what those products and services are worth in a challenging economic time.

“Treat your members like you want to have a relationship after this crisis is over—or any crisis,” she says. “If you really think you’re a content organization, you should be willing to say, ‘We’re a content organization and that’s the value here. You should be able to stand up for that.”

This article was sourced directly from Associations Now here, and is written by Mark Athitakis.