The Michigan Society of Association Executives (MSAE) seeks to support its member associations with training to enhance the value of membership and ensure the continuing success of its members. To meet this goal, MSAE turned to MessageMakers to develop a successful, high-profile training on association member development.
The training’s main goal was to enable each attendee to create a customized plan of action to improve membership development in his/her association. To this end, MessageMakers began with statistics on membership trends across the state and country, polled attendees for trends in their associations, and identified new strategies to consider, in order to ensure the greatest usefulness to attendees.
Leaders of other successful associations shared their approaches, from the leader of a smaller community development association to the leader of a membership group associated with a Fortune 500 company, which grew from 450,000 to a million members during the leader’s tenure.
MessageMakers facilitated breakout groups for attendees to work with experts in particularly useful topics for member development: building communities, branding, fulfillment, partnerships, presentations, and use of video/technology.
After discussing tools and plans with experts and peers, attendees developed their own recruiting and retention plans. Each participant left with an action plan to direct concrete steps in response to their learning.