The warning was given just after I assumed my first position in a nonprofit organization.
“Understand this, it’s going to be harder to recruit volunteers from here on out.
They are facing increased demands and grappling with an unparalleled pace of change.
Even our most reliable volunteers may no longer have the time to contribute.”
The reason?
Women – who comprised the majority of that organization’s volunteers – were returning to work. The change was explained by referring to these volunteers as “Re-entry Women.”
The year?
1978.
Since then, with every subsequent role I assumed, be it working in, with, or for nonprofits (mostly associations) operating at local, state, national or international levels, volunteer leaders and staff professionals were quick to advise me to lower my expectations regarding volunteerism because “people were too busy.”
That’s nearly 50 years of fretting about the same exact thing! Does that make any sense?
What would you think if I told you that research specific to this assumption
– which has been perpetuated for decades –
found that this belief has been misleading us all?
This post explains why and what you can be done to correct it.
Background Context: My Professional Perspective
Since my foray into working in the Third Sector (late 70s), from working first with a few nonprofits, then exclusively with associations, I have had the good fortune to work and partner with thousands of individuals serving in a wide range of voluntary roles.
My experience, particularly as an association management professional, has been extraordinarily
positive because of them. While some have challenged my patience (and I theirs), the rest have had a
profound impact on me…not just professionally, but also personally.
Looking back, I just might have learned more from them than any or all of my professional colleagues…or (with all due respect) any organization that represents the association management profession. I can’t imagine another career that would have afforded me the opportunity to assist members in advancing positive change across such a wide range of professions, trades, and personal avocations…and generate such memorable experiences in the process.
How did members to that?
Their stories offered rare insights of how their engagement made their membership experiences meaningful, purposeful, and transformative in their lives.
Their eagerness to learn how to be effective in an organization that differed substantially from their own practice setting; one they did not fully understand or appreciate.
Their desire to contribute in ways that enabled their association to help their fellow members and advance their practice setting; thus, ensuring their organizations’ long-term sustainability.
I met lots of members who – often serendipitously – discovered that engagement could generate mutually beneficial outcomes. I also met far more who chose not to engage. Interestingly, both groups possessed the same expectations: enjoy meaningful member experiences.
Because of the repetitiveness, in different settings, of the long-standing assumption that members were “too busy,” I began to question its validity. If that was so, then why did some members engage but not others? Was it possible that those who did engage were somehow “less busy;” thus facilitating their involvement?
That didn’t track as I often found that those highly-engaged members tended to be more “highly motivated” and “incredibly busy.”
Seemed the only way to resolve this paradox was to study it in a formal way. With the support of a few dedicated colleagues, the Melos Institute was established as an organization dedicated to learning more
about the emergence, formation, development, and operations of associations.
We immediately launched a series of applied research initiatives.
Assessing a Potentially Unpleasant Reality
The hardest thing to accept in any setting or with any issue is the realization that what is…is. In other words, it cannot and will not ever be any different.
We wondered if that was the case for associations.
Finding nothing in the association management literature to suggest otherwise, those involved in the Institute’s first initiative were eager to learn if the persistent challenges surrounding member engagement represented a defect in the way associations were organized…or if something else, possibly hidden in plain sight, might be the mitigating factor.
Based on that, all agreed that traditional research methods (i.e., surveys/focus groups) would most likely not provide the insight needed. Since we were pursuing insights that were not routinely explored, we instead pursued an applied research approach that allowed us to engage differently with volunteer and staff leaders. That decision guided the following research questions:
Did associations need to accept that the challenges experienced
– specific to member engagement – could never be resolved?
Might there be some underlying reason
– possibly hidden in plain sight – causing or exacerbating it?
Unexpectedly, rather than evaluating the organization’s infrastructure, we focused our attention on the way members perceived, engaged (or not), and interacted with their associations. To gain that insight, we compiled and analyzed hundreds of members’ accounts (i.e., personal stories) of how their membership made a difference (or not) in their lives. Their stories not only spanned decades, but also a wide range of ages, practice settings, and degrees of engagement.
The analysis – from associations representing professions, trades, and personal avocations (unions excluded) – generate revelatory findings.
Consider just a few:
The adoption of traditional business management strategies has – at least thus far – altered associations’ culture from relation-centered to transaction-based; thus directly impacting the degree of social cohesion members are able to achieve.
Viewing and treating members as customers has transformed their understanding of the inherent role and responsibilities their founders intended for them; thus directly influencing their attitudes, behaviors, and actions.
Members understand what it means to be and how to behave as a customer. They do not understand what it means to be or how to behave as an association member; thus directly impacting their engagement, affiliation, loyalty, and commitment to the association.
Members’ hesitancy to engage has never really been about their availability, it’s been their familiarity of how to navigate their association in ways that matter most to them; thus directly impacting the degree to which they are willing to commit their limited resources.
These findings convinced us that members were willing to engage…but in ways that mattered most to them (no surprise). Their degree of ignorance of how to do so was a game-changer. We believed we found the mitigating factor: members’ awareness and appreciation; something that could be addressed with the right strategies.
Confirming that far too many members consciously had been sitting on the sidelines because they didn’t know how to make the most of their membership wasn’t good enough. We dug deeper; hoping to learn why, after a host of traditional strategies designed to inform them, they remained unaware. And, in keeping with the larger research question, whether a solution could be identified.
With the support of a few associations as research partners, we explored various aspects specific to engagement, like:
What would it take to inspire or convince more members to engage?
Did an existing strategy already exist that could easily
be adapted, adjusted, or simply replaced?
We began by examining existing strategies specific to member recruitment, orientation, engagement, and renewal. We found each, while well-intentioned and well-designed, failed to convey the kind of guidance and support that members needed to make meaningful decisions in creating and shaping their membership experiences.
Relation-centered adjustments were made to each strategy and then pilot tested. The results exceeded everyone’s expectations.
How?
These adjustments expanded members’ awareness and understanding of how to engage in ways that generated mutually-beneficial outcomes. Because the information shared was crafted from their perspective, they immediately grasped their next steps. The most rewarding part of this research initiative was observing their level of enthusiasm; something that their volunteer and staff leaders admitted they had not seen in a very long time.
Professional staff, who were convinced that far too many of their members were apathetic, also found a deeper appreciation of their efforts in providing this clarity to their members…they could see first-hand how they were making a difference in their members’ lives.
Those findings led the Institute do develop several publications
(see below: available on the Institute’s References and Resources website tab).
Having had such a positive response to incorporating relation-centered concepts into existing strategies prompted even more interest at the Institute to understand why the adjustments prompted such positive results. That led to an even deeper exploration of whether anything remotely similar to a relation-centered approach had previously been used but not characterized as such.
A wide range of widely-successful membership development strategies (drawn from the Institute’s vast archives) – used by all kinds of associations representing all sorts of members – were examined; some dating back decades. The analysis showed each – in some way – reflected something similar to a relation-centered approach. While not aptly described as such, those who designed the strategies largely designed their strategies based on the beliefs and values that they held about their members
Knowing now that members could be inspired to engage if they had adequate guidance and support, the
Institute’s applied researchers felt it was essential to step back and explore the dynamics and dimensions of associations as a unique population of organizations; with the goal of defining their inherent nature, reason for their existence, and their impact not just in their members’ practice settings, but also in the larger society.
Those findings also generated some unexpected insights.
Business Management as an Association Management Strategy
It wasn’t surprising to learn that association management professionals, since the early 1980s, had been encouraged – like other nonprofit organizations – to adopt transaction-based management strategies initially designed for the for-profit sector. Up until then, managing nonprofits was like the Wild West…no laws, no standards, no rules, no guidelines…very few publications.
Having been involved as a staff professional at the time, I watched volunteer and staff leaders mostly depend on their common sense to do what needed to be done…never knowing if it was enough but hoping for a positive outcome. None of us had any academic training in nonprofit management.
We learned from one another.
The results we achieved in using transaction-based management strategies were undeniable. Organizations became more organized. They convinced everyone that their adoption was the answer to more effective governance and management.
Hard to imagine that, at that same time, association management was barely recognized as a profession by anyone. From my initial involvement in nonprofits, I never much thought about associations…until I began working in one. Not surprising though when you realize that, unlike most other professions, the academic community didn’t formally focus their attention on nonprofits in general or develop a curricula specific to its management until the mid-to-late 1970s.
Even now, 45 years later, the various curricula that have been developed by universities and colleges draws a good deal of content from the only management model that exists: the traditional transaction-based business model.
To date, no management model (i.e., designed just for the nonprofit sector) has ever been explored or
proposed. Thus, the entire nonprofit sector (associations included) has – for decades – had no option
but to use strategies uniquely designed and intended for use in the for-profit sector.
What could go wrong?
How might this affect associations?
Unintentional and Unintended Impact
James R. Hudson, an urban sociologist, never expected to become interested in associations; except maybe his own (American Sociological Association/ASA). An unexpected visit to Alexandria, Virginia left an indelible impact. It wasn’t just that so many associations clustered in the same place. It was the depth and breadth of who they represented. Their existence so close to Washington, D.C. prompted him to assume their presence was solely political. When advised otherwise, he launched what he intended to be a quick review of a few of their published histories. Ten years and more than 400 published histories later, he came to the conclusion that associations were inherently different from for-profit and other nonprofit organizations.
So much so that they deserve to be viewed and treated uniquely as membership-based organizations (MBOs)…and defined as such:
MBOs represent a population of individuals and/or organizations that voluntarily join together (i.e., excluding unions) to promote and protect their mutual interest by advancing their respective bodies of knowledge through a high degree of member engagement; often with the support of a professional staff.
Their effectiveness is built on a network of relationships where members participate and contribute as citizens. Volunteer and staff leaders, working as partners, create opportunities for their members to gain access to the kinds of information, knowledge tools, and connections that empower them to address their individual and collective needs, interests, goals, and aspirations.
The consequence of increasing and strengthening their members’ competencies advances the quality of life for others within the larger society.
This definition made clear that MBOs were more than just organizations. Their existence created distinctive communities (albeit portable and specially-defined). They existed to accomplish something no for-profit or other nonprofit could to the same depth or degree; advance positive social change for every segment and sector of American society. He characterized them in the following way:
“Everything one sees, touches, tastes, smells, feels, and hears
has in some way been influenced by an association.”
His discovery added a new dimension to the Institute’s applied research agenda. Rather than focusing solely on member engagement as a long-standing challenge within a MBO, its entire organizational structure and operations just might benefit by taking a fresh new research perspective.
For example, years later, his examination led to the realization that the association management community had never established formal definitions for the profession or those who assumed its key roles. To clarity the difference between nonprofit and association management professionals, the Institute crafted these working definitions:
Association Management: Defined
The association management profession is a highly-specialized vocation where those involved possess the kinds of special knowledge and competences needed not only to govern and manage very complex MBOs, but also to build, foster, and maintain their socially-cohesive specially-defined membership communities.
Association Management Professionals: Defined
Association management professionals are individuals who have chosen a career path to assist members of MBOs to advance positive social change for their members’ fields of endeavors on individual, collective, and societal levels.
With these baseline findings now in place, the Institute focused on why the profession readily adopted strategies specific to the traditional transaction-based business management model. It didn’t take long to realize that, at the time, most association management professionals had accepted the notion that their MBOs operated like businesses. Thus, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Truth be told: nothing else existed.
And, until Dr. Hudson’s analysis, no one recognized that MBOs possessed something businesses did not:
actual communities (albeit portable and specially-defined)
that needed to be built, fostered, and cultivated.
Was this ever previously explored?
A review of the literature, from the 1980s to the present, showed many talking at length about members representing special communities. This is before online communities ever existed. But, no one ever expressed concerns that the continued use of transaction-based management strategies might negatively impact member engagement.
That prompted us to ask:
Could a correlation exist between operating MBOs as businesses
and the degree of engagement experienced?
A range of applied research initiatives, conducted over the last 10 years by the Institute, proved that it did and does…in unintentional and unexpected ways.
The good news, from that research, is that the impact need not be permanent…if MBOs are willing to make the necessary adjustments.
How Adopting Traditional Transaction-based Business Management Strategies has Impeded Member Engagement
Generating member engagement has been essential to MBOs’ long-term sustainability. However, their ability to achieve sufficient engagement has forced many volunteer and staff leaders to either expand their membership eligibility or establish new audiences to serve. In every case, MBOs have focused their attention on developing one-on-one relationships with each member…just as for-profit institutions do with their customers.
By adopting these for-profit management strategies, volunteer and staff leaders unintentionally blurred their associations’ purpose, scope, focus, and goals. Few considered the fact that if their MBOs’ founders wanted their organizations to operate as businesses, they would have designed them as such. They did not. They intentionally designed them to operate as representative democracies.
This has negatively affected member engagement in two consequential ways.
Blurred MBOs’ Purpose, Scope, Focus and Goals
By operating as businesses, MBOs viewed their members as supporters of their organizations; joining to ensure its sustainability. But, according to most MBO-related published histories, that’s not why their founders formed their organizations.
They formed them to establish, develop, advance, and disseminate a body of knowledge sufficient to further build and strengthen members’ competencies and capacities. They believed that doing so, individually and collectively, would help their members’ practice settings secure the respect and legitimacy required to be accepted in the larger society.
They also understood that their members possessed the “core technology;” meaning they possessed the information, knowledge, experiences, expertise, and connections their MBOs needed to build their members’ bodies of knowledge.
What they didn’t realize was that adopting business management strategies diverted their attention from developing the kinds of strategies needed to build, cultivate, and foster an actual community (albeit portable and specially-defined). Doing so deprived MBOs of developing sufficient social cohesion between and among members.
Thus, members were left on their own to find those colleagues who could be of immediate and direct support. Because they were largely uncertain how to navigate their MBOs effectively, most did not develop the kinds of social connections needed to prompt their ongoing engagement. They found it harder to find those social connections that mattered most to them; or more importantly, transform them into meaningful relationships.
Insight
MBOs are institutions whose entire existence is dependent on the willingness of individuals within a very distinctive type of community to freely contribute their intellectual property and/or proprietary information. They do so to assist others to become more proficient in their practice settings as well as to advance their practice settings themselves.
Encouraging Members to be Reactive Not Proactive
MBOs’ success is often evaluated by the degree to which they can promote and protect their members and their members’ practice settings. Many tend to highlight their MBOs’ public policy efforts as a key indicator. And, that becoming financially viable is another essential goal.
While advancing public policy initiatives is a factor, their founders established these organizations to achieve something far more long-term and consequential: create bodies of knowledge designed to develop, shape, and advance members’ the competencies – individually and collectively. This, to the founders, was critical to securing the respect, legitimacy, and acceptance from others while also and ensuring the sustainability for their practice setting.
In essence, members did not exist to ensure their MBOs’ sustainability. MBOs existed to advance positive social change for their members, their members’ practice settings, and the larger society. To do this, members needed to understand their extraordinary role in that endeavor.
Instead, by adopting transaction-based management strategies, MBOs focused solely on developing relationships directly with each member. In doing so, they unintentionally overlooked creating strategies that taught members:
1) what it meant to be a member, and;
2) how to navigate within their MBOs in ways that mattered most to them.
They also didn’t fully appreciate how using business-related language – and viewing members as customers – shaped their members’ attitudes, behaviors, and actions. Doing so encouraged members to behave as customers…not members. As such, customers tend to react to promotions sent by businesses. So, no surprise members did the same when their MBOs sent out transaction-based communications.
Again, that wasn’t what MBOs’ founders expected. Knowing they depended on their members to engage (i.e., be a resource to their fellow members and their MBOs), the founders viewed their members as citizens. That designation afforded them rights and privileges as well as expected them to fulfill specific duties and obligations. The latter somehow got lost as more transaction-based language was adopted.
What possible impact might this have?
Members now behave more like customers and less like citizens. Most remain passive; awaiting prompts from their MBOs. Interestingly, those MBOs that have adopted relation-centered concepts and language have found members tend to step forward looking for guidance and support to identify those engagement opportunities that best support their desired outcomes.
Insight
Members reticence to engage has never really been about their availability, but instead about their familiarity of how to navigate their association in ways that matter most to them.
Let’s be clear. Management strategies are inherently essential. The processes just need to be adjusted to align with the settings within which they are used. At present, those MBOs that use these strategies primarily designed to generate profit limit the degree to which their members learn how to engage in ways that matter to them. Those who adapt them to be more relation-centered are empowering their members not just to be proactive in addressing their own needs, but also contribute in ways that help their fellow members and their MBOs.
The Institute’s research, thus far, has challenged existing assumptions about member engagement. And, offered alternatives that have been proven effective at generating better and lasting outcomes.
And yet, this is just the beginning of all there is to discover about the consequential impact that relation-centered management can have on MBOs.
Why?
A Way Forward: Essential Steps to Building 21st Century MBOs
If academic scholars have learned anything about organizations and their development (in general), it’s this: their very survival is based on their capacity to evolve. This is true for MBOs…but only if their volunteer and staff leaders are willing to recognize and accept that these organizations differ substantially from for-profit and other nonprofit organizations.
It also means that, to be effective in the roles that they play within them, they will need to think and act differently.
The bad news is that this information about relation-centered management or a relation-centered approach to strategy development does not yet exist in the more existing association management literature.
The good news is that the following can be accessed from the Melos Institute (assorted links below): two groundbreaking books, articles/web postings, case examples, training modules (for boards and members), and more.
So, for those who are interested in learning more about relation-centered management, how does one begin?
All that’s required is a willingness to review pieces uniquely designed for MBOs…like those listed below; available for free download on the Institute’s website.
For Volunteer Leaders
Using Power and Influence to Achieve Positive Social Change
how membership-based organizations organize and mobilize their members to advance their mission and vision
For Members
Making the Most of Your Membership
a relation-centered orientation module for new and current members
If that prompts further interest, we invite you to add these two books to your library:
Special Interest Society:
How Membership-based Organizations Shape America
These publications provide insights on how your MBO can overcome the key obstacles that have been in place for far too long. We’ve touched on the first two. Future postings will be dedicated to offering more insights; along with case examples of how MBOs successfully overcame them.
1. How we view members.
2. How we view associations/MBOs.
3. Management processes/practices we adopt.
4. What we believe members expect.
5. How we promote MBOs and membership.
6. How we communicate with members.
7. How we prepare volunteer leaders.
Finally, MBOs have existed in America for a very long time. So much so that it’s easy to believe that they always will. Decades ago, research conducted by Amos H. Hawley, Ph.D., noted sociologist and 69th president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), warned us all that organizations like MBOs can
only operate effectively in functioning democracies.
Based on what’s happening in our society, this is a sobering thought.
By exploring ways to integrate relation-centered concepts into your existing strategies, it’s not just your MBO that benefits. Your MBO will be transforming itself in ways that will inspire your members to engage in ways that will exceed your expectations.
And, in doing so, ensure the future of our democracy.
