When you are looking to make changes to your organization, the first place you often turn is to your members. Understanding what they want and how they feel about potential changes helps you to determine if you are spending time and energy in the right place. However, the most difficult obstacle is often the process of surveying members and actually receiving a response.

So, how can you get members to welcome surveys and provide their valuable feedback?

Once we get members in the door, our next step should be getting them engaged with the association. They will not be renewing if they step into a community that feels like a bunch of online profiles rather than real people supporting the same mission. You may already be putting in efforts to get members involved, but it never hurts to review your processes. Here are a few tips to bring those profiles to life.

As much as we would all love a 100% retention rate each year, it’s not typically feasible. Members are going to come and go for various reasons. It’s our job as Association Managers, volunteers, and board members to determine what those reasons are and avoid the avoidable lapsed memberships.

As we have onboarded new clients, we have seen it all, color-coded excel sheets, outdated databases, and an unclear membership. One of the first steps we take is understanding who makes up the membership and how they can be better organized. If your board is resistant to membership software or even an upgraded one, here are a few reasons we see it as insanely valuable to an association.