The Common Thread

My friend David Gammel wrote the cover story in Associations Now in May, and he did an excellent job of taking the feel-good, high-level concept of membership “engagement” and bringing it right down to the operational level. It’s a truism in association management that engagement is a good thing: engagement drives retention, engagement drives growth…but how does that really work?

David presents an “engagement acceleration curve” that clarifies the different levels of engagement and, more importantly, demonstrates a progression from less engaged to more engaged. Often, particularly in small associations, I think we just look right to the end. Who can we get on the Board? Who can we get as a major sponsor? These are very high levels of engagement, which really require a progression through other levels. We might intuitively know this, but I think it helps to be more explicit about it, so we can effectively feed the funnel, so to speak.

I look at some of the associations that I manage and I realize that we are not offering enough effective engagement opportunities at the lower end of the scale. And when we do offer them, there isn’t a clear next step, other than to join or come to an event, which are bigger steps. I also find it interesting that in one case, coming to an event (we do them monthly) one would think would be an easier step than joining (which costs between eight and twenty times the registration fee of one event), yet nearly all of our attendees are members. Hmmm.

Thanks, David, for helping me to think more clearly about these issues in concrete ways!

Although I am a fairly intuitive person in general, when it comes to leading associations, I am a big fan of data. I still think intuition is a form of data, but if you use it while ignoring volumes of quantitative data (simply because you don’t want to take the time to gather or analyze those data), I don’t think it will work out well. That’s a recipe for being scattered, following the whims of individual Board Presidents, or being trapped in “we’ve always done it that way.” Bringing hard data into the conversation typically generates better strategic choices.

But the data side of things isn’t so simple, either. At ASAE’s Executive Management Section Council meeting yesterday, ASAE staff reported that according to their research, giving a discount on membership dues was the highest predictor of non-renewal of membership. This makes me think twice about offering discounts on membership. But one of the council members then reported of a trial membership program where they gave away membership for a year (100% discount) but still had 11% renew (by paying the next year). She was pleased with the fact that she got that many new paying members. The ASAE research staff pointed out, however, that within that group 89% did not renew, which was consistent with her research finding.

My point is (and the ASAE staff made basically the same point) that the data by itself can be just as dangerous as the intuition by itself. If you take the statistical correlation that she identified (discounts and non-renewal correlate) and applied it blindly, you wouldn’t give any discounts, and you would miss the opportunity to get those 11% of the trial program as members. The 89% non-renewal rate–in that particular context–is fine.

I love data, but you have to take it through to a complete understanding before it’s really useful.