Do Your Members Have Issues? Options to Deal!

Resubmitted by Nella DeCesare, Director of Marketing

The inevitable answer to the question posed in this article’s title is, yes, association members have issues. It is the nature of associations to coalesce around issues of interest to their members. Those issues may stem from a shared profession, interest or cause. Association leaders must understand organizational options to help members deal. They usually involve one or more of the following:

• Using volunteer help
• Outsourcing to a third party
• Dedicating association staff

Evaluating Options
When considering models for addressing member issues, association leaders must examine the availability of member time and knowledge. Some associations may have a fully-engaged membership with the time and background for such activities.

Time Is Hard to Find
The reality, though, is that most association members are pressed for time and simply cannot delve into the issues shared with fellow association members. This is especially prevalent in fast-paced industries, such as the medical and technology fields. Indicators that volunteer time is not sufficient are:

• High member turnover
• Rapidly changing industry environment
• Wide variety of member issues

Associations with high member turnover rates may lack institutional knowledge regarding the members’ shared issues. Yet, such knowledge is frequently important to understanding current and future member concerns. Some industries, such as the technology industry, also move at a furious pace creating new developments on a daily basis. Keeping pace with associations in those industries can be a full-time job. Moreover, face-paced industries tend to have both a wide depth and breadth of issues. For example, the technology industry issues range from monitoring emerging technologies to IT system security to information privacy.

Association leaders facing these challenges may evaluate the available outsourcing or in-house options through a cost-benefit analysis of whether the expenditure of association funds would result in significant benefits for the collective membership.

To Outsource or To Bring In-House?
Which option an association chooses to pursue depends upon many factors, including financial ones. Smaller, taskoriented projects, such as a one-time report on a high-priority issue may only require hiring a third party with relevant experience. However, for associations with ongoing needs for research, analysis and educational materials, a more cost-effective method may be to dedicate association staff to serve that need.

Thinking About Bringing Issue Research In-House?
Consider This: For associations hiring new staff or re-allocating existing staff for issues research, considerations include:

• Who decides what issues to address? The association officers? An executive board? A committee that identifies and prioritizes issues?
• What skill sets should issues research staff possess? Typical skills are research, analysis, publication writing, and possibly subject matter expertise.
• What type of support will members provide? A committee organized around a particular issue can provide staff with in-the-field expertise.
• What type of products will staff deliver? These range from information- sharing conference calls to short briefs on an issue to longer publications that serve to provide detailed member guidance

The Final Analysis
Every association is unique, because its members are unqiue. Thus, each association will organize issues research in its own way. The important point is that association leaders understand members’ needs for timely and available issue research and the available options to address those needs.