TURNAROUND YOUR MEMBERSHIP

With Sarah Sladek and her team of membership turnaround specialists.

Is your association providing members an ROI in exchange for being a member?

A 21st Century value proposition clearly defines why your members join, engage, and renew membership. Making sure it's meaningful, unique, and motivates people to take action. Think of it as communicating a purpose or passion that clearly communities a high return for members joining and continuing to invest their time and financial resources.

  • Is your planning mindful of your target members' needs, making sure all programming and messaging clearly connects to solves a need or a problem?
  • What is your go-to resource for determining and communicating the real value of being a member?

It's been 10 years since releasing the new membership playbook to help the association's community prepare for the future of membership. If you didn't believe it before, there is no arguing now that we are definitely at The End Of Membership As We Know It!

For so many membership organizations, the inevitable future of membership has arrived with a greater fury ushered in by the pandemic accelerating the timeline for needed change. Leaders are facing the harsh and inevitable reality of membership disengagement and decline, as they’ve remained steadfast in past membership traditions that are negatively impacting the growth of their membership communities.

Our studies show that the significant disruptions and societal shifts of the past 20+ years have influenced younger members' behaviors. This has further affected the reasons why joining and engaging with your organization is different today.

The future you want for your association is within reach, but you’re not going to get there by using “once successful” strategies of the past.

As a membership expert having worked with leaders around the globe, my proprietary research process has continued to uncover why organizations are continuing to struggle. Today’s era of membership requires a significant change in the approach to planning to better engage and grow a more diverse membership community.

I can help your association make a turnaround, taking an accelerated path to membership growth requires a new approach to providing value. Is your approach to membership planning:

Sarah Sladek’s Membership Turnaround Approach

Must-Have

My research process is designed to quickly measure and uncover membership engagement gaps, identifying what’s keeping you from connecting with today’s membership community, and making membership and your value proposition a must-have.

Future-Focused

My proven proprietary Next-Gen Engagement research cross-references engagement behaviors with demographic, industry, and economic trends to ignite and launch an innovative and future-focused planning approach to engage young professionals.

Diversified

Working with your membership team, our process unleashes the powerful voices within your ENTIRE membership community, igniting a deeper connection and increased relevance via deliverables that create must-have value & solve your members' problems.

Member-Centric

Sustainable growth requires a member-centric approach for innovating and delivering ongoing value, taking a ‘members for the members’ approach aligns vision with an understanding of what your membership community truly needs and wants as a member.

Quickly get your Board and Staff aligned for Membership Planning!

Is your association’s culture supportive and inviting to your diverse membership community?

Culture is your organizations' personality. It's the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, experiences, and habits. It's everything that your organization does. It's every behavior. It's how you work and engage together. 
In today’s membership organizations and associations, a positive and purposeful culture is very important. A culture of positivity and purpose fuels membership engagement and membership growth
However most organizations today are structured such that they actively discourage passion and seldom have a positive culture. 
The following table shows the difference between an association relying on outdated membership practices versus an association that is taking an innovative approach to serving its membership community and creating a positive culture.

Outdated Membership Practices

Struggling to engage and retain the participation of younger generations and your younger professionals.

Limited revenue streams with largest percentage focusing on and relying on event revenues.

Limited revenue streams with the largest percentage focusing on and relying on event revenues.

Leadership roles are reserved only for those people with considerable experience and credentials.

Our value proposition is unclear and has not evolved and is mostly valuable to a particular segment of our membership community.

Tradition and hierarchy.

The association's mission isn't considered "must-have" or critical to the betterment of an important purpose, cause, or call to action.

21st Century Membership Practices

We have a high-functioning and engaged multi-generational membership community.

Revenue streams are diversified with a significant percentage from membership dues.

Decision-making entities feature a cross-section of people with varying backgrounds, skills, experiences representing your membership community.

Systems in place to actively engage the participation of new people and new ideas.

We clearly communicate our value and our members receive a significant return on their investment that is a must-have to your membership community.

Innovation and collaboration.

Members consider the mission and membership in the association valuable, relevant, necessary, and important.

Want to transform your association and make it ready for the next generation of members?