Highlights from the ASAE 2004 conference…

Hi

I attended the annual conference of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) in Minneapolis from 14-17 August 2004.

I thought it might be useful to share some of the case studies, news and tips from the event. This report includes:

• Details of two interesting recruitment campaigns

• Highlights one of the key weaknesses of membership associations

• News of a data standard initiative for membership data

• And more.

 I trust you find some of these ideas interesting and thought provoking!

 Regards,  Sue Froggatt

 Recruitment & Retention Activity

1.   A Vendor-Get-Member Campaign: The National Golf Course Owner’s Association (NGCOA) highlighted a new approach to recruitment that guaranteed 600 new members every year for the next 5 years.

One of the associations' vendor partners are golf buggy manufactures. They had been working closely for some years with one supplier, Yamaha, who offered a 10% discount to any golf club that was a member of the association. This scheme had been responsible for generating 10% of the association’s new members; however the renewal rate of 50% had been disappointing.

When the arrangement contract came up for renewal the association decided to approach all three suppliers of golf buggies (Club Car, EZGO & Yamaha) to outline what they would be prepared to offer members and, what they would like to see the association provide them with in return. This allowed each of the vendors to be creative and gave the NGCOA the opportunity to find out about vendors expectations.

Club Car was the only vendor to come up with an offer that guaranteed 600 new members every year of the five-year contract. The figure of 600 was based on Club Car’s own calculations and they guaranteed to make up any short fall with additional marketing spend. 

Together they identified 3,000 non-member golf courses which Club Car began targeting.

Club Car offered a free subscription and a discount off the price of the buggies to any new customers that were not already members. If any new customer was already a member of the association, they received a discount off the price of the new buggies. Existing customers of Club Car that were already members of the association also benefited. They got a free place at the conference and a cheque towards the cost of travel, so this helped the Association receive registrations for the conference.  Existing customers who were not members were offered a free subscription. This approach ensured that there was something for everyone.

This scheme has been working well for the last two years. The NGCOA handle any new member joining via Club Car differently from other members. They get a special letter of introduction and a phone call after 30 and 90 days. As a result retention is up to 70%.  (NB: Just incase you wondered, the association still works with the other two vendors. They are able to reach members via advertising and exhibitions, but there are no other special arrangements in place.)  

2.   A Member Loyalty Scheme: The Association Forum of Chicargoland (AFC) is a membership association for membership associations in the Chicago region.

They have introduced a classic CRM loyalty scheme. What is interesting is that they give members points for 21 different types of involvement activity and behaviour! For example, members earn points for answering a bonus question on a member opinion poll (10 points), attending a special interest group or submitting the name of a prospect (100 points), joining a committee or attending the AGM (200 points), speaking at a conference or writing an article for their magazine (500 points), chairing a committee (3000 points) and if a CEO they have sponsored becomes a member (7000 points). In addition, everyone starts the year with 10 points for every year of membership. Members then redeem their points for a range of products, from alarm clocks to camcorders.

The result is that they have seen a 60% increase in new member referrals and increased retention by 5%.

Their advice for any association considering introducing a loyalty scheme is as follows. Keep it simple, make rewards meaningful for members, put a program around what is naturally happening, let the points rewarded relate to value to the association, make it easy to earn rewards, let them know frequently what they have earned from a variety of sources, treat members who earn more points differently, get a sponsor to underwrite the scheme to reduce your risks, let people know how long the prizes will take to arrive (they outsource this task), let members know of any tax implications of the prizes, give new members double points on everything as an incentive to get involved, make it happen quickly, track behavior beforehand and know the lifetime value so you know what you can afford to spend.

3.   Generation X: One topic that came up was the problem of recruiting “Gen-Xers”. This group follow Baby Boomers and includes anyone born between 1961-81 (currently between 23 to 43).  In general, Gen-Xers have been found to be less interested in joining associations, more skeptical and less likely to commit to volunteer.

The result is that many associations are suffering with a generation gap between the board and members. One association I spoke to ensures that they have Gen-Xers represented on all committees and another opts to limit the term of office on committees to three years to ensure the views and ideas from this group are considered. Any retiring committee members are asked to serve on advisory panels.

 Key Issues

4.   The Problem of ‘Letting Go’: Several speakers commented that one of the biggest issues facing associations is the ability to let go and retire programs, products or services. The problem arises because of the decision making process in associations is committee and consensus driven. This takes time and people are not willing to take the risks, particularly compared to the commercial sector where decisions are taken fast and there are fewer people involved in the process. The management guru Drucker says this is the ‘Achilles’ heel of associations. You can’t liberate resources for the future if you are tied up with running out-of-date programs! 

5.   Getting Focused: Some very interesting work has been done helping associations develop clarity for dealing with change by Jim Dalton. His work builds on the environmental scanning research undertaken by the ASAE.  He has developed an approach and framework that helps associations set the priorities and developing action. His direct style is however not for the fainthearted – he aims to get “board babble” out of board meetings.  

6.   For Profit v. Not For Profit (NFP) Distinctions: It is clear that two sectors are actively looking at each other to see what they can learn and adopt from each other. Will this cause encroachment and blurring? What did other speakers say?

•  “The big learning opportunity for associations is customer service.”

•  “I work for a non-profit business”. That was a new one on me! He described his organization as a ‘not-for-profit’ that uses market forces to generate revenue for its community.

• Two speakers spoke of ‘up-selling’ and ‘cross-selling’ to members. This terminology has definitely been borrowed from the commercial sector!

• A new threat for associations from the commercial sector is emerging from on-line recruitment sites. They were found to be “aggressively targeting association members by creating services that compete directly with those offered by associations”.

So how are NFP associations unique? It is an important question to be able to answer. One speaker said ‘unlike companies, they have volunteers’. Another expert said ‘they focus on developing human potential’. Or, is the focus on developing a community with common interests? I also heard the comment that many associations talk about all the good stuff at the top, but managers are focused on numbers and targets. There are probably many personal views and opinions on this topic.  What do you think?

 IT Developments

7.   Developing Data Standards For Associations: Anyone involved with membership systems might be interested to learn that an Association Data Standards Consortium (ADSC) has been set up in the US to define standards for sharing member data between association management systems and other applications. For more information on this visit: http://www.disa.org/x12org/about/ADSC.cfm

8.   Blogs: One of the latest ways of sharing your thoughts is via a 'bog' which is short for a web-log. This is like an on-line diary or journal where people record their thoughts in a conversational tone. It is likely to become the latest facility at conferences. Delegates can make comments on presentations and these are displayed live via a large screen for everyone to read.

There was a blog running thought this conference and the screen was on the ASAE stand which was just outside the main exhibition hall. It gave delegates, speakers and event organizers, instant feedback on what was happening in each of the sessions.

There are now many weblogs on the Internet which can be subscribed to via news feeds. The media industry and corporates are now regularly scanning them to find out who is saying what. It is being described as a new form of street journalism, with one blogger recently being invited onto CNN to give their view alongside a group of industry experts. Another variation is a ‘klog’ or knowledge weblog used by association staff for sharing knowledge on an intranet.  

Other News  

9.   A New Type of Income for NFP’s: Bill Shaw, the founder of Share our Strength, talked about developing a different source of on-going income for NFP’s called ‘community wealth’. For example, a child day care center contracted out the use of its kitchen facilities during those times when it was not being used. This created food for others in the community and a new and regular income stream for the centre.

10.  Selling Out Your Exhibition Space: You have to pay attention to a convention where the exhibition is ‘sold out’ and all delegate refreshments (during the day and evening), plus all the evening entertainment, and even some of the seminar sessions, attracted sponsorship. That is what happened at this ASAE convention. So what was the magic ingredient? The keen interest from all of the state convention bureaus and hotels who were actively courting associations to hold their annual conventions at their facilities. So, the morale of the tale is, if you are looking for funding, don’t forget to consider including venues in your list of possible sponsors!

The formulae for attracting the delegates into the exhibition was as follows:

• Put the keynote speakers on at 8 am to ensure the delegates arrive early.

• Open the exhibition straight after the keynotes and put the complimentary food (breakfast and lunch) towards the back of the exhibition hall to ensure delegates move into the hall and past the stands.

• Close the exhibition at mid-day. Then start the seminars.

© Sue Froggatt, 2004