Associations representing professions, trades, and personal avocations were inherently designed by their founders to serve as the architects and arbiters of their members’ bodies of knowledge. These trailblazers recognized that the future success of their practice settings was contingent on identifying, defining, shaping, and advancing the kind of core content (i.e., a body of knowledge) that would develop the competencies and capacities not just of their members but also of all those involved in their chosen fields of endeavor.
More importantly, their success in doing so was contingent on their members’ willingness to contribute their information, knowledge, experiences, expertise, and connections. In essence, the future of their vocations or avocations was wholly dependent on their members. They believed this endeavor would help distinguish their members – who were dedicated to their practice settings – from the frauds, charlatans, and interlopers who were content to deceive those in the larger society of their involvement in a particular vocation or avocation.
This extraordinary insight was the principal finding of an unprecedented research initiative conducted by James R. Hudson, Ph.D., urban sociologist and change process expert. After analyzing over 400 associations’ published histories, he identified a host of additional common patterns and trends that proved that institutions representing professions, trades, and personal avocations should be viewed, treated, and studied as a unique population of organizations; particularly because they differed substantially in their purpose, scope, focus, and goals from for-profit and other nonprofit organizations.
As such, they should be characterized
as membership-based organizations (MBOs).
Lately, the need for many MBOs to dedicate more of their attention on the bodies of knowledge for their members’ practice settings is becoming increasingly apparent. Why? Thanks to a number of policy decisions made by the federal government, the once was a widely-popular belief that nearly every practice setting in America is in need of reform (i.e., often referred to as broken) has radically changed from professions, trades, and personal avocations being in a state of evidence-based dysfunction to being undeniably damaged and most likely unquestionably broken.
If ever there was a time for MBOs to recognize, accept, and reassume
their inherent role in a functioning democracy, it’s now.
What It Means to Be the Architect and Arbiter of a Practice Setting
People tend to focus attention on those companies known for introducing innovations into our society. We often attribute whatever changes result from those initial efforts. Most, however, fail to recognize is the degree to which the information specific to that innovation must be disseminated to others in that practice setting and beyond. While those innovators can and do sponsor opportunities to do so, their efforts are often further augmented and supported by those MBOs representing that profession, trade, or personal avocation.
Despite MBOs’ ubiquity, society barely recognizes their presence; except for those the media periodically spotlights and accuses as operating as selfish special interest groups. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No.10, did express his concerns of how “factions” might undermine the country’s ability to govern fairly. Yet, he also recognized that factions (i.e., today’s special interest groups) were essential to ensure diversity of thought and reason. He believed establishing the government as a republic – with sufficient representation for the citizenry – was one way of alleviating any one faction from dominating discussion on a specific topic or issue.
Dr. Hudson’s research led him to recognize that nearly every American possessed at least one special interest; most often it was directly related to their vocation or avocation. Invariably, one if not more MBOs existed to support that very thing. Interestingly, the founders were far more concerned about securing legitimacy and respect from the larger society than mobilizing to influence public policy initiatives. That’s because their practice settings were often emergent in the society; prompting little need for legislative or regulatory restraint.
To gain that legitimacy and respect, they made sure that their members had access z
to the most up-to-date, time-sensitive, and accurate kinds of information, knowledge, and tools
that they needed to be effective and successful in their vocational and avocational endeavors.
To accomplish this, MBOs eventually established processes that identified, tracked, and monitored anticipated as well as unanticipated changes to their fields of endeavor; from the introduction of new information to more effective practices. It was this inherent responsibility that Dr. Hudson believed differentiated MBOs from other organizational types.
And, frankly, this responsibility prompted the formation and emergence of the association management profession.
Unfortunately, despite its century-long existence, most who enter the profession still are only able to develop the competencies and capacities needed for the job…on the job.
Why?
Those who find themselves leading or working in MBOs, soon realize their responsibilities require attention and action in two dimensions:
- managing the organization, and;
- monitoring their members’ specific field of endeavor.
Simply put, changes in their members’ practice settings directly impact their organizations’ sustainability; just usually on a delayed time frame.
Since most practice settings are continually evolving, association management professionals find themselves continually having to adapt their governance and management processes to ensure their institutions are:
- identifying and addressing the threats and challenges that endanger their members’ practice settings;
- adapting and shaping the core content of the existing bodies of knowledge to remain relevant, and;
- disseminating those new insights, concepts, and findings to members for adoption.
Many association management professionals are unaccustomed to working in an organization that requires this kind of continual adaptation to adequately address expected or unexpected threats and challenges impacting their members’ practice settings. Those who fail to adapt their operations and programming to accommodate their members’ needs, interests, goals, and aspirations ultimately find themselves at odds with them.
Unfortunately for the association management profession, that reality is no longer occurring in isolated cases; primarily because the federal government has chosen to impose threats and challenges on nearly every, if not every, practice setting in America. Volunteer and staff leaders no longer just have the “luxury” of integrating a few advancements into to their members’ vocations or avocations.
They are being faced with the reality of having to redefine and reshape
their members’ practice settings – and their MBOs as a result –
to ensure their mutual survival and longevity well into the 21st century.
If ever there was a time for MBOs to reassess their ability to accomplish this existential outcome…and adjust accordingly, it’s now.
If not, members – especially younger generations – may commit their support elsewhere.
How MBOs have Historically Supported Members’ Need to Change
For decades, MBOs have adopted some form of strategic planning; recognizing its value in helping their volunteer and staff leaders focus on a select set of actions designed to generate desired outcomes. I was a MBO staff professional in the early 1990s when MBOs were encouraged to adopt the process used by the U.S. Department of Defense. Since then, it has evolved with the advent of adjustments to the initial planning process. Not surprisingly, the process has generated a great deal of debate about its efficacy and its relevance; particularly with the unwavering belief of how new technologies are directly and indirectly affecting the quality of life in our society.
In defense of the planning process, it’s not clear that any legitimate analysis has been conducted to
either affirm the detractors’ claims or negate them based on the degree to which it or any of its
adaptations have been implemented accurately. Likewise, the degree to which it has been facilitated
effectively.
What has become clear is that the process has evolved way beyond its initial design, intent, and setting.
And it has been adopted without any degree of adaptation for its use in a new setting. For example, the
outcomes sought are no longer military-focused (i.e., war/conflict) but either business-focused (i.e.,
profit) or nonprofit focused (i.e., philanthropic).
Regardless of the process used, its design without adaptation
has been flawed for MBOs from the start.
Deliberations have consistently focused attention
on the organization operating as a business
and its members supporting it as customers.
If that wasn’t enough, MBOs using this planning process had another obstacle that was nearly impossible to overcome: those involved (i.e., volunteer leaders and some professional staff) were often unaware of the dynamics and dimensions of their organizations’ operations and programming.
No amount of information or preparation could ensure that these dedicated members understood or appreciated the complexities surrounding their MBOs’ governance and management processes. At the same time, the same was true about the professional staff…including CEOs. No amount of preparation could help them fully understand or appreciate the complexity of their members’ practice settings; more specifically the impact and consequence of unexpected and/or unwarranted threats and challenges.
Despite all that, MBOs have yet to address the one additional factor has proven to be far more detrimental than any other.
The greatest obstacle to any planning effort is the assumption
that those involved have developed the capacity
to think critically and strategically…including the meeting facilitator.
A lot has been written of late, including survey findings, about the need for volunteer and staff leaders to routinely engage in discussions that are more foresight-focused. While it may seem so, this is not a recent phenomenon; it’s been going on as long as MBOs have been conducting planning events with 3 their volunteer leaders. And it’s not clear that the association management profession has developed anything to resolve it.
Unfortunately, those involved
– when asked to brainstorm new ideas, concepts, and innovations –
are encouraged at these planning events to “think outside the box.”
How’s that been working? Why has it not been effective?
Dan Pallotta, noted entrepreneur and nonprofit advocate, decades ago pleaded with nonprofit leaders to stop dedicating time to thinking outside the box. He believed any effort to do so was wholly unproductive unless those involved took the time to understand the nature of that box. He felt without that context, the deliberation had little potential of generating any meaningful outcomes.
His assessment was spot on. Unfortunately, decades later, any explanation that he might have offered
on how to understand the nature of the box has been lost.
But one very intuitive and innovative association management professional developed his own solution
for his fellow volunteer and staff leaders.
Decades ago, I met Kenneth M. Slaw, Ph.D., while he was the director of membership and
strategic planning at the American Academy of Pediatrics (Note: presently executive director,
Society for Vascular Surgery). He recognized the need to help his volunteer leaders and
professional staff develop thinking skills that would empower them to boldly define and shape
the future of their MBO and the pediatric profession.
His guidance taught them to think both critically and strategically in three areas:
• hindsight (i.e., past/previous efforts);
• insight (i.e., current/actual efforts), and;
• foresight (i.e., future/responsive efforts).
They learned how insights and information from the first two stages gave them a better understanding and appreciation of how best to shape the future. His approach helped everyone learn how to understand the nature of the combined and integrated pediatric/MBO box.
While Dr. Slaw may not have formally published his approach for widespread use, we can imagine the
information shared and sample questions used to expand his planning team’s awareness and understanding. To this day, this approach could help volunteer and staff leaders sharpen their thinking skills in ways that cannot be achieved otherwise…certainly far more than simply asking them to think outside the box.
Planning for Desired Outcomes vs Planning for the 21st Century Impact of Serving Members in Today’s Uncertain and Unstable Environment
As noted earlier, the federal government is imposing threats and challenges on most every practice
setting in America. Many of which are considered not just unparalleled in nature, but also incredibly and
possibly permanently destructive as well. This has prompted many opponents – representing all sorts of
backgrounds – to conclude that most professions, trades, and personal avocations in America will have
to do far more than just assess the damage done; most will have to define a new and better way
forward.
How realistic is it to believe that a strategic plan…in its current form or any of its adaptations will be of any real help?
Shelly Cumbie Alcorn, a trailblazer within the association management profession, believes that MBOs should explore replacing the strategic planning process with a more continuous deliberative one similar to dynamic steering. For MBOs, such a process could also be characterized as change process planning; an approach which recognizes that their members’ practice settings are continually changing and evolving. To be responsive to that which arises, volunteer and staff leaders must be prepared to address anticipated as well as unanticipated threats and challenges…as well as pursue expected as well as unexpected opportunities.
Shelly Cumbie Alcorn, a trailblazer within the association management profession, believes that MBOs should explore replacing the strategic planning process with a more continuous deliberative one similar to dynamic steering. For MBOs, such a process could also be characterized as change process planning; an approach which recognizes that their members’ practice settings are continually changing and evolving. To be responsive to that which arises, volunteer and staff leaders must be prepared to address anticipated as well as unanticipated threats and challenges…as well as pursue expected as well as unexpected opportunities.
While this approach can be launched at a special event where volunteer and staff leaders consider the issues at hand and consider options to address them, they ultimately authorize their CEO to make adjustments to meet changing conditions, emerging elements, and resulting outcomes from existing efforts. In essence, once the process is launched, the interventions chosen are generated based on a continuous loop of assessments, design, implementation (including prototyping) and evaluation…until the desired outcomes have been achieved.
Based on today’s threats and challenges, just what might that look like?
When MBOs are faced with the need to change, the dynamics to address it are unlike those of other organizations. As previously noted, it’s not just about taking steps to ensure the institutions’ sustainability. MBOs’ primary focus must be on the kinds of changes that will address that relieve their members’ profession, trade, or personal avocation from undesired threats and challenges.
More importantly, MBOs must be aware and monitor the period of time between the point at which a threat or challenge directly impacts their members to the point at which members then insist that their volunteer and staff leaders address them.
In essence, MBOs are more than businesses creating product lines for their members.
As architects and arbiters, they serve as change agents for their members’ practice settings.
They do so by continuously monitoring and then taking steps to pursue a better outcome.
Those who avoid doing this jeopardize losing their members’ support…sometimes permanently.
History is filled with examples of how MBOs have suffered permanent membership losses like the American Medical Association (AMA) that initially failed, or at best hesitated, to recognize, accept, and assimilate the diversification and evolution of the medical field (i.e., physicians representing different racial backgrounds, genders, and ultimately new medical specialties).
Those affected at the time did not waiver or grieve the loss. They simply found others who shared their interests and goals…and formed a new MBO. Anecdotally, it’s been said that negative experiences – like those experienced by physician members within the AMA – are long remembered and are ultimately integrated into the new MBOs’ culture. Sadly, if this happens, any effort by MBOs to repair or restore relationships with their previous members is quite difficult if not impossible.
MBOs don’t have the luxury to just focus on their own sustainability.
They must also ensure that the strategies chosen actually overcome the barriers their members are facing that are designed to inhibit their effectiveness or success in their practice settings. This often requires volunteer and staff leaders to ensure that the decisions made and actions chosen generate mutually beneficial outcomes. That’s not an easy task; especially when the actions fail to address MBOs’ long-standing internal challenges like membership development, member engagement, leadership development, communications, and more.
A practice setting has great difficulty advancing itself if the MBO representing it is not operating at its best…and may be unable to organize, inspire, and mobilize its members as needed.
If that was not enough….
MBOs, like every other social system in America, are now saddled with the responsibility of advancing their mission and achieving critical priorities not only within their members’ practice settings but also within a society that is becoming increasingly unpredictable and unreliable… domestically and globally.
For many practice settings, the number and degree of threats and challenges that have occurred could never have been imagined to occur within a functioning democracy. Where once a practice setting might depend upon another to provide some support, relief, and guidance, they now find that group facing its own unique threats and challenges. Further, those that may yet emerge are expected to defy sound reason, practicality, and consequence.
Again, suffice to say, most MBOs have rarely ever faced this degree of disorder, dismantlement, demolition, and destabilization of their members’ practice settings.
Accordingly, one of the greatest transgressions
has been the intentional and callous dissemination
of misinformation and disinformation
about members’ fields of endeavor to Americans.
Unfortunately, most of the traditional strategies (i.e., lobbying, political action, litigation) employed by MBOs are proving insufficient to combatting this unparalleled and asymmetric approach inflicted on most ever sector and segment of our society by the federal government. While these influence-based initiatives cannot be abandoned, others of a more innovative nature must be established.
Assuming responsibility for this could be viewed by volunteer and staff leaders as an insurmountable expectation. Not really, if you consider the following:
An Audacious Strategy for Combating Misinformation and Disinformation
MBOs are in possession of an extraordinary asset: their specially-defined membership communities. They differ from other organizations with members in that their homogeneity (i.e., based on their background, training, language, etc.) creates a natural bond between and among them; one that has barely been tapped.
MBOs’ founders recognized that these members were more than customers or subscribers. They were citizens who, by virtue of their membership, gained access to rights and privileges as well as were expected to fulfill specific duties and obligations. The first two provided them the opportunity to develop their inherent potential and achieve personal and professional success. The latter required them to share their information, knowledge, experiences, expertise, and connections to advance the body of knowledge for their practice settings.
In essence, the members are the MBO
and the MBO are the members
(apologies for the bad grammar).
Too often volunteer and staff leaders confuse their MBOs as the buildings that produce their programming and house their staff. The buildings merely exist to facilitate the work that needs to be done to deliver purposeful, meaningful, and transformative experiences to their members.
For volunteer and staff leaders, who have developed a habit of monitoring patterns and trends, consider this.
Instead of focusing solely on the ways in which the MBO can respond,
focus also on ways in which members can provide direct support and relief
(beyond their financial contributions).
Conceptualize strategies that leverage the capacity
that members have to influence and educate
those within the personal and professional social networks
that exist within the geographic communities within which they live, work, and play.
That access is not just direct and continuous, but also more effective based on the trusted relationships that they have forged. Further, members’ efforts like this expand MBOs’ outreach…connecting with individuals who most likely would never recognize a more formalized campaign or might just interpret it as an effort by a special interest group.
Rest assured this is just one of the many ways in which members can become vital contributors to promoting and protecting their practice settings. The more they are mobilized to do so, the more they recognize that they play an integral role in shaping their fields of endeavor.
Making this kind of transition of thinking often requires more than a conversation or a suggestion. It requires, as Dan Pallotta recommended, those involved to learn the nature of the box first.
The Melos Institute has created such a tool to help volunteer and staff leaders develop a better understanding and appreciation of what MBOs are and what their inherent role is in supporting not just their members’ practice settings but also a functioning democracy. It’s available, at no cost, at the link below:
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 some time to come, challenges and threats from the federal government are going to continue…possibly become even more egregious. Those MBOs that remain relevant to members are those that ensure their volunteer and staff leaders possess the capacity to think differently: to deliberate critically and to conceptualize strategically.
The good news is that everyone involved with MBOs has the capacity to learn and become proficient in the skills needed to monitor, assess, and address threats and challenges impacting their members.
For some time to come, challenges and threats from the federal government are going to continue…possibly become even more egregious. Those MBOs that remain relevant to members are those that ensure their volunteer and staff leaders possess the capacity to think differently: to deliberate critically and to conceptualize strategically.
The good news is that everyone involved with MBOs has the capacity to learn and become proficient in the skills needed to monitor, assess, and address threats and challenges impacting their members.
Becoming adept at Dr. Slaw’s productive deliberation model of hindsight, insight, and foresight
begins with helping volunteer and staff leaders develop and/or strengthen their critical and
strategic thinking skills.
Transforming the strategic planning process to something more like dynamic steering (i.e.
change process planning), as Shelly Cumbie Alcorn has suggested, is well worth exploring.
And, that’s just the start in helping the association management profession to establish the kind of body of knowledge (i.e., less transaction-based and more relation-centered) that MBOs are going to need to survive and thrive throughout the 21st century.
Why?
Association management is one of the most complex and consequential professions in America. Its effectiveness empowers every practice setting in America to achieve its inherent potential.
Thus, it’s time to replace the following assumptions with those that more accurate reflect MBOs.
MBOs are not businesses but institutions uniquely designed
to generate positive and lasting social change on multiple dimensions.
Members are not customers but as citizens
of specially defined membership communities (albeit portable in nature).
MBOs can only operate effectively in functioning democracies.
If ever there was a time for MBOs to assume their rightful role in our society, it’s now.
These institutions are going to be essential when this country begins the long process of defining its
future…conceptualizing solutions for every segment and sector in our society.
MBOs don’t just need to be at that table, they need to also provide essential information and knowledge. They do that by tapping into the rich asset that they possess: their members’ information, knowledge, experiences, expertise, and connections.
Some MBOs may have developed that capacity already. For those that have not, the ability to do so is
easier than you might think.
It begins by appreciating what MBOs are
and their inherent role in our society.
It begins by accepting that MBOs are distinctive
from for-profit and other nonprofit institutions.
It begins by replacing transaction-based strategies
with those that are more relation-centered.
Association management professionals have a rare opportunity to shape the future of this country in ways that their predecessors could not.
More importantly, those who are willing to adopt the changes needed now, will also have an opportunity to establish a governance and management framework that will empower their successors to be effective in the days, weeks, months, years, and decades to come.
What choice will you make? Protect the status quo – or – be a part of shaping a better future?
Interested in additional relation-centered tools uniquely designed to support positive and lasting change? Check out our LibraryHub.
For additional information, insights, and tools, visit our website:
www.melosinstitute.org.
© copyright 2026, Melos Institute Santa Fe, New Mexico
Patricia A. Hudson, MPsSc is the founder and president of the Melos Institute.
