Powerful insights and sound advice
We have been in business since 1997 and uniquely understand association management. We draw upon our innovation, commitment, and results-orientation to share a vast amount of practical knowledge with our clients.
The Power of Branding
What is Branding?
- “… a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association).
- Your promise to your members
- The idea or image people have in mind when thinking about specific products, services and activities of a company…
Obtaining and Retaining Sponsor Revenue
It is difficult to rely on ticket sales to break even or make a profit on an event. Meeting space, speaker fees, food expense, and marketing costs can add up quickly. Obtaining event sponsorships from key partners can make the difference in achieving the event’s financial and organizational goals…
Generate Non-Dues Revenue…Now!
Many organizations count on non-dues revenue to keep membership fees competitive and to pay operating expenses. Non-dues revenue falls into two categories: internal revenue earned from products and services sold to members and external revenue obtained from vendors, partners, advertisers, and other groups.
Win Back Lapsed Members
The best way to win back members is to never have lost them at all. Organizations should have a year-round membership retention strategy with separate tactics for different segments of your membership. For example, develop a plan for those in the first two years of membership and a different plan for VIP members. Any membership retention plan should include…
Frequently Asked Strategic Planning Questions
Every organization has stakeholders to which it is accountable. Building and carrying out a strategic plan on their behalf means you are listening to members’ wants and needs while remaining cognizant of constraints on the organization such as finances and competition.
Selecting an AMC
Are you looking for specific expertise and critical skill sets to help manage your organization? Do you want to lower your costs and operate with greater efficiency? Should your Board spend less time on day-to-day activities and more time setting direction?
Putting Research To Work
Archetype studies of how Americans see the world provide important clues on how to engage employees during the wait-and-see of a slow economy and while facing the uncertainty of what military conflicts will bring. These studies, sponsored by industry leaders AT&T, Hewlett Packard and the American Society for Quality, contain the seeds for sparking greater initiative, creativity, collaboration and commitment. Every ingredient is built right into the American psyche – and awaits organizations that choose to tap into these inherent and uniquely American traits…
Survey Myths
When selecting a survey method, it is important for the organization to determine the scope and purpose of the project. There are multiple low cost, minimum effort techniques of data collection easily presented in a brief summary. On the other hand, organizations may use the findings to track significant trends, approve capital expenditures or to implement employee incentive programs. Based on organizational needs, more robust initiatives may require database tracking, filing systems and extensive documentation, all at a much greater cost. Selecting the wrong survey method routinely yields incomplete and/or inconsistent data and will usually delay the research process…
Tips for Building Traffic to Your Website
Too often website owners and search marketers get caught up in tactics, forgetting the short and long term objectives of the website. For example, generating spikes of social news and book-marking traffic makes for a good PowerPoint slide, but it’s not a final outcome and is not always a viable long term tactic for professional websites…
Tips for Growing Your Membership
Members are the lifeblood of any organization. Without members, the organization’s mission and purpose cannot be effectively realized. Nonprofit organizations are better positioned to attract new members if they demonstrate consistent adherence to their mission, while delivering ongoing value to their members…
Social Media Guidelines for Non-Profit Organizations
You’ve set up your social media accounts. You tweet. You post. But, you wonder, is your organization using social media effectively? Here are nine tips on using social media to engage your current and future membership…
Social Media Parts I, II and III
It all starts with your message. Social media is a powerful marketing and communication tool which allows you to spread your message to your audiences. Social should work with – and enhance – your existing marketing efforts. Wikipedia defines it as “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues…”
Navigating the Fundraising Maze – Part I
Americans, for the most part, are compassionate. They give generously – over $335 billion in 2013, according to GivingUSA – to thousands of nonprofit organizations that do incredible things with those donations. But sponsors, donors, and nonprofit organizations submit that more could be done if there were more resources available. Sponsors and donors are concerned that their giving is not making a real difference. Yet nonprofit organizations that truly make a difference for people and causes struggle to find enough money to fund their efforts…
Navigating the Fundraising Maze Part II
American corporations have fully embraced the “doing well while doing good” giving concept. Cause-related marketing is quickly becoming the primary way that businesses express their social responsibility. The added advantage is that consumers seem to really like it, especially moms and millennials. Research continues to suggest that consumers like buying cause-related products…
Navigating the Fundraising Maze Part III
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often times described as a social conscious integrated into a company’s business model and strategic plan. CSR also means self-policing and adherence to legal, ethical, environmental, and international standards throughout the entire organization and its activities…
