While dues are certainly a key component of any association’s financial stability, the leaders at your organization — particularly those who work in finance and fundraising — understand that dues alone are not enough to keep an association afloat.

On March 11, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced its proposed withdrawal of its previous rule[1] for evaluating an individual’s independent contractor status (“Final Rule”). The Final Rule was officially withdrawn as explained in the Federal Register on May 6, 2021.[2] The DOL’s stated reasoning for issuing the withdrawal is because the Final Rule would “significantly weaken protections afforded to American workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act [(FLSA)].” For employers, including not-for-profit organizations, the withdrawal creates uncertainty for classifying an independent contractor and the factors that the DOL or a court will evaluate to determine whether the classification is appropriate.

Nearly 100 association professionals and industry partners/suppliers gathered both in-person and virtually for a unique hybrid program on Thursday, October 29 at the Horizon Convention Center in Muncie, IN. "Back to Business: Planning Live Events During The Pandemic" was a collaboration between the Indiana Society of Association Executives (ISAE), Meeting Professionals International's Indiana Chapter (MPI Indiana) and Minorities in Hospitality (MIH).

Discover new ways to engage your attendees at your next virtual meeting! Remote games don't have to be time-consuming to create or even all that challenging to be FUN! Here are some suggestions for games you can create in minutes with your current event technologies (video conference platform, event app, survey tools).   

Attending the sessions at ICON2020 are sure to check a lot of boxes for you as you find the tools and information to fuel your association’s success during these challenging times. One challenge that is sure to outlive the pandemic is revenue generation.

Whether your organization is on a national scale with board members across the country or is a local chapter with board members in close proximity, your team can benefit from hosting virtual board meetings.

A few months ago, one of our volunteers approached us to inquire about education and networking for young professionals. While we could certainly provide a list of programs and resources appropriate for this segment of our membership, we realized there was a much larger opportunity to cultivate a community for members in this very important stage of their career.

The Indiana Society of Association Executives (ISAE) staff recognize the current COVID-19 situation and its impacts on our members, partners and the associations they represent. ISAE is committed to providing maximum support to our members during this time of crisis and uncertainty. We will continually provide updates as the association industry, ISAE events, committee meetings and other member gatherings are impacted.

I recently sat down with American Alliance of Orthopaedic Executives CEO Addy Kujawa, CAE, about sales and what she has learned from her ten years of selling for AAOE and taking their conference sponsorships from $30,000 to over $300,000 each year. Here are her top 5 tips to selling for your organization.

Value is at the core of member retention. If a member doesn’t feel like they’re getting value from your organization, they’re likely to let their membership lapse. But on the flip side, if they do feel like they’re getting value from your organization, they’re likely to renew — and engage more with your offerings.

Here we are again nearing the end of the year and once again asking, ‘what can we do in the office to “spice up” the holidays and create some holiday cheer?’ The ISAE Digital Marketing Committee members put their heads together to share some fun ideas for work holiday parties and activities. Given that not everyone celebrates the holidays, none of these activities or parties should be made mandatory.

Recruiting volunteers is something that many nonprofits and associations see as a low priority. Unpaid, temporary, non-professional, why bother investing much time and effort? Unfortunately, being shortsighted in this way can do lasting damage to your organization.

Over the summer, my association, AAOE, embarked on the journey of selecting a new Learning Management System (LMS) – a road often fraught with seemingly-endless calls and demos (where you come to discover that the Request for Proposal you so carefully crafted may or may not have been reviewed or understood), proposals that test the limits of your budget (especially for a small staff like ours), and the ultimate, nail-biting decision that can feel like a giant leap of faith. Four months later, we are now in the process of onboarding and launching our new LMS, and while I can’t claim to be an LMS selection expert, I am sharing some of my lessons learned along the way.

According to learning evangelist and Event Garde CEO Aaron Wolowiec, “Finding a speaker for an event can sometimes be a daunting challenge. How do you really know if the selected individual will bring the right mix of knowledge, enthusiasm and engagement to the room?”

The ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition was held from August 10-13 in Columbus, Ohio, and neither the convention nor the city disappointed. The conference opened with a keynote by bestselling authors Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms in which they discussed the “new power” dynamics in today’s society. Their talk was based on their bestselling book, New Power: How Anyone Can Persuade in Our Chaotic, Connected Age. Until recently, the world was defined by “old power” which was held by only a few and was jealously guarded. “New power” is transparent and participatory. New power can help us run more dynamic associations especially in an era where the public is demanding more openness and input into their associations and many individuals’ engagement with associations is declining. The challenge is to channel this “new power” to make it work for you and your association and to develop a leadership pipeline for the future. The book is a fairly easy read and relatively inexpensive (available through ASAE or Amazon for less than $17).

At this year’s ISAE Annual Convention, held in South Bend, fun and learning were in abundance. Topics ranged from facing change, to best practices, to what young professionals want out of their association career and more. 

You’ve heard the saying, “What you say is not as important as how you say it.” Well, what you say is certainly important, but when it comes to marketing - and particularly, marketing to young professionals - how you say things is key.

Regularly feeding your association’s blog, newsletter, and social media channels with new content keeps members coming back to get the latest industry information straight from your association. But that’s easier said than done when you’re facing a limited budget or staff resources. That’s where repurposing comes in. If you take the time to create a strong piece of content, you can reuse it in multiple ways to keep it fresh, timely, and relevant – all while taking less time than developing an entirely new piece and better ensuring that content gets maximum impact.

Associations are vulnerable to many of the same thorny issues that for-profit businesses face. In an environment that values relationships and status to some degree, it is no wonder that there’s a risk of nepotism and cronyism in associations and nonprofits. Let’s look at why this is a dangerous problem, how it happens, and what to do about it.

Summer is a great time to get to work on those “parking lot projects” that get squeezed out of your calendar by annual conference planning and membership renewal campaigns. It’s also an excellent time to reconnect with members without asking for anything but engagement in return.