Very few organisations could claim that they have never had members asking:
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What do I get for my subscription?
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How does it help me?
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Those at H.Q. are out of touch with the members.
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We go in too hard on issues.
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We don't go in hard enough!
In my own 36 years of industry/professional association work, I have heard them all - and in each organisation I worked in! This has caused me to think about what are the key measures of an organisation's health - and how often are they checked, analysed and calibrated?
What are the symptoms of an ailing association? Some danger signs clearly are:
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falling membership;
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ageing membership;
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loss of influence;
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lack of competition for elected positions;
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rapid changeover of senior staff
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loss of corporate memory
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a sense of treading water rather than moving forward;
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no direction, no vision; and
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the emergence of competitors.
This is the tip of the iceberg. Like a disease, there is not much benefit from simply treating the symptoms if at the same time you don't determine the root cause and implement major change. It is always easier to fill in the potholes rather than resurface the road, but the road will get progressively weaker through this process. (Now that's a three metaphor paragraph!)
In answer to this, Client Solutions has developed a range of services which will allow groups to know more about themselves and to improve the way they operate. It's called Association Analytics and will cover a range of analyses, diagnostics and recalibration in areas such as:
Australian Health Media Summary - 17 September 2008
