Craig Cheatham, CAE
Craig Cheatham, CMP, CAE, is president and CEO of The Realty Alliance in Colorado Springs.
Beyond bylaws and boardrooms, the real momentum of association success comes from a nuanced, often unseen influence.
Association executives and volunteer leaders are well-versed in the frameworks and mechanics of our organizations’ governance. We diligently facilitate the work of boards, committees, and other official work groups. We provide notice and coordinate periodic membership meetings. We reference bylaws, policies, and procedures to ensure our staff and volunteers align their workflow to these official governing documents. These structures are essential, providing the legal and functional foundation for nonprofit membership organizations.
However, after more than 30 years in this field, I have come to believe that one of the most powerful forces behind a thriving association isn’t written into any charter or spelled out in Robert’s Rules of Order. It’s what I call “informal governance.”
Informal governance isn’t a substitute for formal governance — it’s a necessary complement. It lives in the spaces between board meetings and outside the boundaries of organizational charts. At its core, informal governance is about shoring up the formal workflow through your instinctual understanding of human nature, the flow of information, relationships, and how members outside your association’s official positions are just as important as those serving terms on committees or boards.
Veterans in our line of work likely recognize this concept, though this article may put words to it for the first time. Those newer to this role will find greater success more quickly by looking for opportunities to utilize this idea.
I define this approach as the ongoing effort to:
Think of it as the quiet, often invisible work of building coalitions, testing ideas informally, and reading the room before the room is even assembled. It’s the ability to anticipate pushback, surface unspoken concerns, and identify champions for new initiatives before they formally come up for a vote.
Formal governance is essential, consistently delivering fairness and transparency. However, every association comprises at least a handful of members of great significance in the field, but who for good reasons are not part of the board or other official work group.
Maintaining open lines of two-way communication with these experts out in the field can:
Association professionals are uniquely positioned to act as the stewards of informal governance. While volunteer leaders come and go, staff maintain continuity, hold institutional knowledge, and have the bandwidth to maintain relationships across a wide spectrum of members.
This role demands more than operational competence — it requires emotional intelligence, political savvy, and a willingness to engage in what one might call “behind-the-scenes leadership.” Make it your practice to listen for patterns, connect dots between conversations, and gently coach both staff and volunteers in ways that don’t always show up in the minutes but often determine the success of association programs.
Though informal governance is by nature unstructured, it benefits from intentionality. Consider building regular informal touchpoints into your association calendar. Create feedback loops beyond surveys, such as one-on-one calls, small group chats, or “office hours” at events. Identify opportunities to provide informal updates to key stakeholders. Most importantly, recognize informal governance as a legitimate and valuable part of your strategy. Use the term. Talk about it with your team and train staff to use it.
Builder Supplementing your organization’s official framework with informal governance is like adding much-needed lubricant to all the moving parts. It connects strategy with consensus and policy with people. By embracing the power of this behind-the-scenes leadership, we create more responsive, inclusive, and effective organizations — and elevate the practice of association management in the process.
It may not be in the bylaws, but informal governance may be the most important administrative tool in your toolbox.