Working long hours, stressed, ready to throw in the towel. Sound familiar? We’ve all been there.

Seeking relief, your first stop is the boss’s office to express frustration and ask for help—which usually means asking that more people be hired. Most of the time, the answer is no … or not now … or my favorite, “Let’s reevaluate in six months.”

When I faced this dilemma at the Global Business Travel Association, I succeeded in getting extra help by proving the return on investment for an additional resource. My secret was using indisputable data.

Mariner Management CEO Peter Houstle launched a Chapter ROI project in 2017, inviting association executives to contribute to Mariner’s Chapter ROI Valuation Matrix [PDF]. The tool allows associations to assign dollar values to chapter services by calculating the revenue they bring in and the cost the parent organization would have incurred had staff or vendors done the work performed by chapter volunteers.

“The valuation matrix is a brainstorming exercise to collect a list of activities that could be monetized directly— as a service based on volunteer hours—or indirectly,” says Houstle. “Everyone knows how much their chapter system costs, but they don’t know how much it’s worth.” (Only 5 percent of associations calculate the ROI of their chapter programs, according to Mariner’s 2016 Chapter Benchmarking Study.)

A scant 5 percent of associations calculate the ROI of their chapter programs, according to Mariner Management’s 2016 Chapter Benchmarking Study.

The Chapter ROI Valuation Matrix outlines a number of channels or ways in which chapters can produce value for an association. They include:

• Serving as distribution channels for selling and delivering products to members
• Delivering marketing and communication messages
• Providing a listening tool for the association to learn about developing issues, trends, and more.
• Helping the association with new-member recruitment and relationship building
• Channeling association advocacy messages to lawmakers
• Purchasing and participating in continuing education
• Training and mentoring next-gen professionals and preparing them, if applicable, for certification
• Being a local resource the association can turn to for additional expertise
• Assisting in product development by testing and giving feedback on new programs
• Demonstrating member engagement by volunteering for short-term projects
• Offering leadership development to members that allows them to  improve their readiness to participate on the national stage

Measuring Merit

According to Mariner, there are four ways in which a dollar value can be assigned to a chapter’s services:

Direct value. The chapter activity produces direct income to the association (a rebate on the sale of a T-shirt, for example).

Price the service based on open market rates. Most of the above services could be purchased by a private sector vendor. What money is being saved by using chapter members to provide this work instead?

Price the volunteer contribution. Estimate or track the hours put in by chapter volunteers to deliver these functions and assign an hourly rate that reflects what other professionals in the industry earn.

Indirect value. Assess the influence of chapter activity on the mission or the organization’s metrics for factors like certifications, memberships, and registrations.

Not all categories will apply to every association, and not every association will have all the data at their fingertips. My recommendation is to start small with the data you know you have. As you continue to track and measure progress with your components (which you may call chapters, affiliates, or sections), start measuring more activities and adding this data to the matrix.

As a member-driven association, these contributions have a direct effect on the organization’s mission on a national level. At GBTA, we always knew our component contributions were valuable, but until this exercise, we couldn’t put a dollar figure against it or show how great the need was to increase the support we provide to our volunteer network. We’re always evaluating ways to increase our investment in our components in a way that is sustainable for both staff and our members. Being armed with this data puts us in a great position to do this in a smart way for the association’s growth moving forward.