Association execs consume – and produce – a lot of research in our day-to-day work, but most of us don’t have formal training in research. A lot of the language of research programs– p-values and confidence intervals and margins of error – can be pretty jargony, and some of the concepts behind what makes for good (or less good) research can be challenging for people who haven’t had the opportunity to take a graduate level methods course.
How can you be sure that the research you’re using or sponsoring is giving you the insight you need to make good decisions? How can you protect your association’s reputation as a trusted source of unbiased information for the profession or industry you serve?
In the latest Spark collaborative whitepaper, Caveat Emptor: Becoming a Responsible Consumer of Research, Polly Karpowicz, CAE and I tackle the sometimes thorny issue of what you need to know to be a savvy consumer and sponsor of research even if you DON’T have a formal background in research methods or much formal training (which, let’s be honest, most of us don’t).
The whitepaper also includes:
An interview with Dr. Sharon E. Moss, co-editor (with Sarah C. Slater) of The Informed Association: A Practical Guide to Using Research for Results, on ethical practices in research.
An interview with Dr. Joyce E. A. Russell, The Helen and William O’Toole Dean at Villanova School of Business, on developing discernment in assessing research.
An interview with Jeff Tenenbaum, Managing Partner at Tenenbaum Law Group PLLC, on avoiding antitrust liability.
Case studies with the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Casualty Actuarial Society, and IEEE.
A plain English review of key research terms, and a brief explanation of the rules of formal logic (and how they affect research work).
Recommendations for books, articles, websites, podcasts, and courses you can use to improve your research skills.
A series of thought questions for you to use to spark discussion with your team.
An extensive list of resources in case you want to dig deeper on any of the topics addressed.
I’ll be blogging about the whitepaper more in the coming days, highlighting some of our major findings, but in the meantime I invite you to download your free copy at https://bit.ly/3SYJiAO – we don’t collect any data on you to get it, and you won’t end up on some mailing list you didn’t ask for. We just use the bit.ly as an easy mechanism to count the number of times it’s been downloaded.
And don’t forget to check out some of the other FREE Spark collaborative whitepapers, too, on topics ranging from content curation to digital transformation, blockchain, DEI, lean startup, member-centric engagement, and more!
I recently had the opportunity to participate in the January 2022 Association Insights In Old Town (ASAE login required) virtual educational session, Better Engage Your Members and Attendees to Solve Association Problems, led by Better Meetings‘s Lee Gimpel.
It was one of the best educational sessions I’ve attended in some time.
Lee crafted an effective and highly interactive session that showed rather than told us how to craft a session that would actually get people working with each other in a fun but not intimidating way.
We’ve all been to virtual events that promise to be highly engaging and then do it by putting people into small (sometimes too small) group breakout rooms for exercises that some of the participants may not find to be particularly useful/applicable, or that are too heavy a lift. We try to create something so that people don’t just sit there passively and listen (half-listen while “multi-tasking,” aka “the session is running in the background but I’m not paying attention – I’m answering email”), but we overshoot and ask too much of people.
Lee’s session was structured to illustrate the principles of:
Conveying to participants that we value their input
Saving ourselves from assuming we have the right answer
Getting participants to interact
Teaching people a technique to use in their organizations
Meeting people
Without much preamble, he put us into breakout rooms to do introductions with an easy-lift icebreaker. Then he brought us back together and posed a question for a “chat waterfall.” Then he explained what we were going to work on together: Brainstorming ideas for non-dues revenue on a Google sheet. It was set up so we were working in parallel breakout rooms. The focus wasn’t on conversation, although we were in small enough groups that we could discuss if we wanted to, which kept the shared workspace from becoming unmanageable. He then brought us back together for a final pass on the sum total work we’d created together and a little theory about how he constructed the session.
I asked him about his thinking in putting the session together and he pointed me to an article he wrote for Forbes (that you should really check out, as it might disabuse you of the notion that what you’ve been promoting as “highly interactive” sessions is really delivering on that) and also shared this insight:
We can actually do a lot in an hour, but teaching people what we’re doing cuts the actual working time by about half. With more time, we’d really want to complete the loop: generate a bunch of ideas –> refine them down to our favorites (the star voting, etc.) –> discuss those in depth, add action steps, etc.
The hour flew by, we were all actually interacting and contributing, we learned by doing, and I met some new people and learned just a little bit about them. Mission accomplished!
Learning about what digital transformation is (and isn’t), why it matters, what barriers are unique to associations, what advantages our industry has – that’s all interesting and useful.
But how do you actually accomplish digital transformation in your association?
Secure leadership support and a funding commitment.
Identify strategic areas where digital tech could make a difference.
Review your legacy systems and processes (make sure you’ve got the “digitizing” part covered, for Ross/Mocker fans).
Recruit your team.
Get comfortable with experimenting (for more on how to do this, see the earlier Spark collaborative whitepaper Innovate the Lean Way).
Improve your culture management.
THEN AND ONLY THEN, chose your tech investments and make it happen.
For more on how to do all that – including case studies of associations that have (the Construction Specifications Institute, the Healthcare Financial Management Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the School Nutrition Association) – download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy, no divulging of information about yourself required.
First of all, you don’t want a cloud strategy, or an AI strategy, or a social strategy – you need well-thought-out organizational strategy that includes these things. The tech is not the end – it’s the means to the end of accomplishing your larger organizational goals in a member-centric way.
But it’s the culture part that gets really tricky. In order to be successful, you’ll need strong, consistent support from your C-suite (and your board or volunteer leadership), actively providing direction and the resources for that change to happen, and that involves identifying and, as necessary, adjusting your culture patterns.
To learn more about how you do that, download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy, no divulging of information about yourself required.
This is also why a lot of the copious digital transformation advice that exists don’t quite hit the mark for associations: for-profit culture is fundamentally different than association culture.
On one level, that’s because a member =/= a customer.
However, associations also struggle with awkward collaboration, reactive transparency, uneven discipline, and unclear priorities.
To learn more about all of these, and what your association can do to overcome them and use what makes member relationships special to accelerate your transformation efforts, download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy, no divulging of information about yourself required.
When Maddie Grant and I were researching The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward, we found all sorts of definitions, depending on the perspective of the definer (marketing, tech, HR, C-suite, etc.). People also tend to define digital transformation too narrowly, as just about the adoption of new technologies and/or as adopting a “digital-first” culture.
The thing is, as my pretty post header graphic reads, the challenge associations face in our digital transformation initiatives is that it’s an iterative process that includes both of technologies and culture, and our members. Associations focus on creating more value for our members and for the professions and industries we serve, which means we need to continuously change the way we work, which means we need to be on the lookout for the tools and technologies that will allow us to do that. And the cycle repeats.
Which sounds, if not easy, then at least simple.
So why aren’t we doing it?
To discover the answer, download the full whitepaper at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy, no divulging of information about yourself required.
Organizations of ALL types – for profit and tax exempt – have been talking about digital transformation for many years, and yet association efforts, both to digitize and to go digital, continue to lag.
Why is that?
In our new whitepaper, Maddie Grant, co-founder of PROPEL, and I posit that it’s all about culture. There’s a ton of great research and advice – Maddie and I review a good chunk of it in the monograph – but it’s missing our community because it misses what makes us unique:
associations have both unique advantages and particular challenges we face in trying to transform ourselves, assets and drawbacks that the extensive existing literature on the topic doesn’t really address. Associations have been struggling with digital transformation because the advice that exists on how to do it misses what makes our community special.
In The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward, Maddie and I analyze a decade of research that demonstrates that the key to lasting, responsive digital transformation is intentional and focused culture change. We delve deeply into how that impacts associations particularly and what association execs need to know and do to be successful in their DT initiatives.
The whitepaper also includes:
An interview with Martin Mocker, co-author (with Dr. Jeanne Ross and Cynthia M. Beath) of Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success.
A summary of digital transformation maturity assessment tools, and a recommendation as to which we think you should use.
A summary of PROPEL’s culture management maturity model.
The definitive answer to the perpetual “Should we build an app?” dilemma. (Well, OK, *we* think it’s the definitive answer.)
Case studies with the Construction Specifications Institute, the Healthcare Financial Management Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the School Nutrition Association.
A series of thought questions for you to use to spark discussion with your team.
An extensive list of resources in case you want to dig deeper on any of the topics addressed.
I’ll be blogging about the whitepaper in the coming days, highlighting some of our major findings, but in the meantime I invite you to download your free copy at https://bit.ly/3y4O6dy – we don’t collect any data on you to get it, and you won’t end up on some mailing list you didn’t ask for. We just use the bit.ly as an easy mechanism to count the number of times it’s been downloaded.
And don’t forget to check out some of the other FREE Spark collaborative whitepapers, too:
I’m so excited to announce that the next Spark collaborative whitepaper will be dropping ONE week from today.
In it, Maddie Grant (Digital Strategist, PROPEL) and I discuss digital transformation for associations, seeking to address what makes the process of digital transformation different for associations. Spoiler alert: it’s culture.
I recently sat down (virtually) with Carol Hamilton of Grace Social Sector Consulting to talk about our findings for her Mission Impact podcast. Some of the topics we touched on in our wide-ranging conversation include:
The significance of digital transformation for nonprofit organizations
What’s different about digital transformation for associations
Avoiding shiny object syndrome in your tech related projects
That seems like an easy question: “Anyone whose dues are current,” right?
But if you dig a little deeper, it quickly gets a lot more complicated.
Do you offer a grace period?
Are there ways to pay other than money?
What about the people in your profession or industry who haven’t paid?
What about the people who support those in your profession or industry?
What about their audiences or customers?
For instance, many associations report trouble attracting and retaining young professionals. But if we’ve set up “pay us money” as a barrier to entry, it’s no wonder. Young professionals are young – their employers may not pay for association membership for them, and if those employers don’t pay, young professionals often can’t afford to pay out of pocket. They tend not to be making large sums of money, and meanwhile they’re paying off school debt and/or saving for major life events and purchases. Is there a way those cash-strapped young professionals could contribute something else of value? The most obvious non-monetary contribution would be serving in a volunteer position, but they might not have the capacity to be committee members either. Could they serve as social media ambassadors for you? Volunteer at chapter events? Assist in moderating your online community (after, of course, receiving training)?
As another example, what roles do you offer for the people and organizations who support your profession or industry? What are you doing to work with those who provide training and education to your entering new or career-change professionals, whether they be graduate or undergraduate program faculty or those who provide more hands-on training at technical schools or through formal or informal apprenticeships? Those trainers and educators may not be appropriate targets for your primary membership benefits, since those benefits are likely targeted to people actually doing the work, but they are critical contributors to the profession or industry you serve. What are you doing to build relationships with them?
Many associations offer “supplier memberships,” but those are often little more than fees we charge companies for the right to advertise to our paying members. What can you do to stop treating those companies like a cash register? They are critical elements of your community, too.
There is no one right answer to any of these. But all those groups – people in their grace period, people who contribute to your association in ways other than financial, the rest of your industry or profession (including supporting players like educators who train people and suppliers who make their work possible), even potentially your members’ “end users” – are potential valuable contributors to your community, if you can find the right way to connect with them.
In my last post, I shared the link to the webinar my Steal This Idea! co-author Sohini Baliga and I presented for Wild Apricot on March 21. Sohini and I got to as many questions as we could at the end the webinar, but as usual, we missed a few, so we’re answering them below:
How can wildlife conservation related organizations tap into millenials if we are asking them to be a hero for another species?
EWE: This provides a great opportunity to tell a story of an endangered animal (or species or wild place) in a way that’s compelling and, in that story, explain how your donor/member can be the hero who saves that animal (or species or wild place) by her donation.
What if your membership is a low fee like $25/year?
EWE: Well, at least you’ll probably never hear the objection: “Dues were too expensive”! Seriously, though, that hopefully means you have a lot of people in your membership file. The trick now is to start looking for the ones who do more than just pay their $25 a year – or who want to do more than that.
How have you had best success at gathering stories from members/donors?
EWE: Talk to them. That can be individual and formal (like a phone interview), group and formal (like a focus group), or individual and informal (like a conversation at an event). Pay attention to when he starts talking faster, or a little louder, or in a higher pitch. Watch for when her eyes light up and her face gets more animated. That means you’ve struck gold – you’ve discovered something that member is passionate about. Then it’s your job to look for ways that member’s passions tie to your organization’s mission, and explain to her how involvement in your organization will make a difference to that issue she’s passionate about.
We are a membership association of cause-oriented organizations. But we don’t have a cause ourselves. Will there be materials in this webinar that will help me?
EWE: Sohini and I would like to think so. When you’re a federation of organizations, it can be hard to make that direct, personal tie with people. I’m about to use an example that’s a bit politically charged, so stick with me. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton founded an organization called Onward Together. It uses her high profile and large audience to raise money for small, scrappy nonprofits that are doing excellent work, but that may lack the audience base to effectively raise money themselves. Can you highlight the stories of the organizations you serve?
We are thinking about doing a major gala. What is the best way to get corporate table sponsorships if you don’t know people within the individual businesses?
SB: The first thing to consider is that corporations look at the bottom line, and want bragging rights – it makes them look good. Now, put yourself in a corporation’s position. You’re not just spending money because it feels good – you have to pay employees and benefits, investors and backers want to see returns on their investment, and you need to be able to stand behind your spending decisions. All of them. So what’s going to make you give? What’s going to make you say, “Sure, I’ve got bills, but you can not only have a big chunk of change, you can put my name up in lights so others come asking me for the same thing”? What will make you say yes? What will make it hard for you to say no? Therein lies your answer – make your best case; make the story of the gala compelling; make it really hard to say no. Make them an offer they can’t refuse.
This is where I will say that nonprofits should not skimp on fundraising staff and professional executive development. A good, connected development officer is worth every penny of salary. And it is their job to make those sponsorships happen in tandem with a board and executive staff that is not shy, and can make the ask clearly, comfortably, and elegantly. There are grants available for hiring fundraising staff and professional development at all levels of the nonprofit world. The bigger the budget, the more they exist – because everyone understands that you have to support staff so they can do their best. It’s not a perk; it’s an investment that allows nonprofits to continue growing and serving their core mission.
What is the best way to get feedback from members? Surveys at events, letters, or…?
EWE: Yes. You want to turn your organization into a sponge for information. That means you want to collect data on your members and other audiences formally (like surveys and interviews) and informally (like conversations and responses to emails). You want to collect it actively (asking people to answer questions) and passively (paying attention to what they do and tracking what behaviors you can without turning into Big Brother and creeping people out).
Collecting the data is only the first step, though. You also have to share it with your colleagues. You’d be amazed at what your “line” staff in customer service knows that you don’t know, because they talk to your stakeholders all the time. Likewise, you’d be amazed at the insights your newer or more junior staff might have into some of your “C-suite” information, because they have a fresh perspective and aren’t jaded by “we’ve always done it this way” and “we tried that five years ago, and it didn’t work.” No information hoarding!
I have a large number of small dollar donors that I want to cultivate to be higher donors. I would like to meet with them to know them better. How should I go about doing that?
EWE: Ask them. I am a donor to Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (one of our case studies). My relationship with them started by going to one show. I liked it, so I went to more. I liked them, so I became a season subscriber. I realized I supported their mission, so I started donating. Now I’m donating much more, on an annual basis, than I was then. The Woolly development staff started building that relationship by calling me up to ask if I would like to meet for coffee.
Any suggestions on where to start with an all-volunteer organization?
EWE: It’s tough when you have no paid staff. Sustained projects, like fancy integrated multi-channel campaigns, are really hard to do. You need to assess what, for your organization, would constitute low-hanging fruit. Can you easily identify who your super-members are? Can each volunteer take responsibility for calling one of them in the next two weeks? Do you have young people in your volunteer base? Can you get them talking about what sorts of engagement activities they would find appealing? Does your organization have a compelling story, where it’s easy to frame the member as the hero? Could you send out one email that does that? Figure out what the easy thing is, do it, (hopefully) experience some success and learn some things, and build from there.
Missed the webinar? Wild Apricot’s got you covered.
