As a Board of Directors, it is critical to define a who on your team is responsible for what. This not only eliminates overlap in work, but ensures a solid understanding of who has autonomy make decisions and complete certain work. It helps build a more effective and streamlined workflow for all involved. Use these four tips to clarify your board’s decision-makers and roles.
Preparing your association for a recession can be downright intimidating. However, it’s critical to start your preparations early and determine how you can minimize the impact of an economic downturn on your association’s finances. Use these three questions to help you decide what to keep and what to cut from your association budgets.
Our team recently attended ASAE’s Annual Meeting and Exposition where they learned all about how to better manage associations. One of the topics that stuck out was that of applying social work skills to association management. This session focused on emotional intelligence and how it applies to leadership.
Emotional intelligence is your ability to understand other people and their motives as well as your own. Your ability to understand and control your own emotions is tied to your emotional intelligence or quotient. You may be wondering how this ties to running your organization. Working on how you see others’ views, react, and read people are not only skills that make for healthy personal relationships, but professional as well. Learn to have more productive conversations by utilizing the following tips, ideas, and solutions.
Every organization (or at least we hope) has conversations regarding what’s next. What’s next for membership? What will the next conference look like? What can we post on social media next month? These are all important “nexts” but not as important as what is next for leadership. Without succession planning, the other plans may not happen or they may not be what members need. Associations often fail to develop leadership while they still have strong leaders.
Search for the leaders. As a board or committee chair, you know what other members are regularly volunteering and showing interest in the organization. Keep an eye on those members and get a pulse for how involved they would like to become. Having a roster of potential leaders will make the process much easier.
Warm up the new leaders. Find ways for potential or next in line leaders to get a feel for their future role. Whether it is serving on a co-chair of a committee or president-elect, practice makes perfect. This is a time for the current leader to train the volunteer for their role. It allows for questions to be asked before the transition occurs.
Weed out the “bad.” Not to say that someone who is volunteering their time can be bad, but there are most certainly volunteers who are not as passionate or dedicated as they once were. Be able to recognize this when it happens and take action. It is okay to have an honest conversation with the volunteer while recognizing the commitment they have had in the past.
Make it protocol. To make those conversations easier or unnecessary, set term limits. Ensure that your bylaws clearly state how long members should serve on a board or committee. This will allow new talent to continuously flow through the association and eliminate the inevitable burnout.
Succession planning allows for new ideas and new perspectives to be brought to the table. It creates conversations that might have otherwise never been had. You might enjoy your role as a leader, but you can’t do it forever. If you have a passion for the organization, make sure it will have a successful future.
Members join associations to fill a need or desire. These needs and desires are likely to change over time and your association should be open and ready for change. “81% of associations with membership increases in the past five years, and 82% with an increase in overall new members, are significantly more likely – by margins of at least fifteen points – to indicate that their organization has a culture that supports innovation.”(Marketing General Incorporated) The opposite can be said for associations that do not support innovation. These organizations saw a dip in membership numbers. You may be asking, how do I effectively implement innovation within the board and association? Good question.
Start with self-reflection. Within your board, evaluate what has changed and what has remained the same for years. Just because something has been done the same way for years does not always make it the best way for it to be done. How can you improve that for membership? What do members need out of it? Work from there!
If you work with an AMC, ask for their advice! They have seen many different ways of doing things and can be a great resource when it comes to implementing change. They can also provide an outside perspective on how things look, what seems to be working, and what is not.
You may be overwhelmed by the amount of tasks and processes to review. Try walking through the member experience from start to finish.
Review membership models. Are there enough options? Are there too many options? Are the prices fair?
Review benefits. Are members given what they are promised? Do they still want the same benefits? Ask them! A simple survey can answer these questions. This will keep you from wasting time and money on things they may not be interested in while allowing you to focus on things they do want.
From there, review anything else involved with being a member including events, communication, etc. Once you have wrapped up the review process, do not lose momentum. Now is the time to brainstorm and implement change. This is the only way to grow your organization over time. Members will age out or fall off and innovation will allow you to slow this down while growing new demographics. “Associations with increases in one-year and five-year membership numbers are more likely to have higher percentages of Millennials and Generation X members (23% and 31%, respectively). One way these groups are achieving this is through growth in participation with their young professional programs.” (Marketing General Incorporated) Growing these younger generations and allowing them opportunities within the organization is crucial to staying relevant. Without an openness to innovation, your association will stay stagnant or see a decline in membership. Get ahead of this and watch your association prosper.
