The Value of Trade Association Membership

Ah, the refreshing refrain of 'What have you done for me lately?' Words to pique the attention of and create a small rush of angst for our Association officials out there with the CVB’s, the Chambers, the Lodging, Restaurant, Hospitality and Travel Associations who serve us so well. Membership has shriveled, as have the dues intake and public funding for many. A transformation is scheduled, for the business model is broken, and your audience is impatient.

Be all things to all people. Nonsense! You simply cannot run an organization with forty people on the Board of Directors, representing all the facets and interests of your organization. Decisions do not get made, everything is sent to committee, build a horse and end up with a camel. Fully empower an Executive Committee of doers (movers and shakers), all types (not just the CEO’s of your major local companies- very smart but often myopic), and let them drive the process with some entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, and some risk. Get something done, show some movement, act!.

Affiliate and align. Every organization should be looking to strategic alignments with other organizations of like interests. Just as schools have centralized and our local governments are looking similarly for shared services, a community simply cannot support several Trade Associations which touch the same “pie”, like tourism, perhaps from different angles. Then, you layer on regional and state association representation, and you have a dog fight for scraps. No one wins.

The Association Fee structure is not sustainable. Most organizations have excluded, by their pricing, some significant business/member participation. From a perspective member’s point of view, they have multiple choices, too, of organizations to represent their best interests. From a Vendor’s perspective, there is no way they can afford to join each and all Association, really just to have access, which does not always pay off. In a time of dwindling resources, you are shooting yourself in the foot (and pocketbook). So, re-look the structure.

Trade Associations can still succeed with a Charter of marketing, lobbying, education and goods and services. However, your historical rules and regulations need a scrubbing, for it no longer makes sense (and, then you become history). Adapt or vanish!