Education has long been a key component of most associations’ value proposition. But in today’s learning landscape, it’s more than a component — it’s a platform for advancing mission, delivering member value, and sustaining revenue.

As demand for personalized, outcomes-driven learning grows and competition from other sources increases, many associations are striving to grow their reach, revenue, and impact through professional development. Yet despite the investment of time and resources, many find that gains are incremental at best. Why?

In our experience working with hundreds of associations over the past two decades, the answer is clear. Too few organizations treat education as a truly strategic function. They develop programs and set goals but lack the coherence and focus that define real strategy.

Drawing on our consulting work and insights from strategy experts like Michael Porter, Richard Rumelt, and Roger Martin, we believe three elements are essential to a strong education strategy: context, choices, and coherence. These elements provide a foundation for shaping education strategy that delivers meaningful, measurable results and aligns with broader organizational priorities.

Context: Know What’s Really Going On

Effective strategy starts with a clear, evidence-based understanding of your environment. That means looking at both the internal dynamics of your organization and the external trends reshaping how your members learn and work.

Too often, education strategy is reactive, responding to last year’s dip in webinar attendance or chasing a trend like microlearning. But good strategy calls for a deeper diagnosis. What’s driving member behavior? How is competition — for both dollars and attention — evolving? What’s changing in the labor market? And how does learning fit into the full arc of the member experience?

Today’s learners expect more than access to content. They want learning that fits their career path, adapts to their schedule, and delivers tangible outcomes. At the same time, employers seek trusted partners to close skills gaps and support workforce development. And associations face competition not only from ed tech platforms and universities but also from less formal sources — search engines, influencers, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence.

Despite these pressures, associations remain uniquely positioned. They are mission-driven, deeply embedded in their fields, and connected to a community of practice. These advantages make them powerful learning partners — if their education strategy is grounded in a clear, current understanding of context.

As one association CEO we interviewed recently put it, “There’s almost nothing our association does that doesn’t connect to learning — how people are prepared, how they keep up, what they’re expected to do to stay current.”

That kind of holistic perspective is essential. Learning doesn’t just happen in courses or conferences. It’s woven into every meaningful interaction members have with the association.

Strategy must account for that.

Choices: Decide Where and How You’ll Win

Understanding your context enables the second key element: making strategic choices.

Michael Porter put it simply: “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

That can be difficult in associations, where the instinct is to be inclusive and to serve as many people and needs as possible. But effective strategy requires trade-offs. It means choosing:

• Which learners to prioritize (e.g., early-career professionals versus executives)
• What kinds of value to emphasize (e.g., credentials, networking, skill building)
• Which delivery approaches to focus on (e.g., virtual, cohort based, asynchronous)
• What capabilities to invest in (e.g., instructional design, analytics, employer partnerships)

In navigating the available choices, it can be important for associations to recognize that while it is important to support the learning of all members, doing that does not require a formal educational offering in your catalog for every member. To further guide decision-making, we often use an “A Framework” adapted from Roger Martin’s concept of a strategic cascade. The framework includes six interrelated elements:

• Aspiration: What change are you trying to create in your field?
• Audience: Who must you serve and inspire?
• Achievements: What outcomes should your learners reach?
• Approach: How will you deliver value and engagement?
• Abilities: What must you be excellent at?
• Advantage: What makes you different and hard to replicate?

Critically, choices about these elements shouldn’t be made in isolation by the education team. They must be shaped through cross-functional input and supported by executive leadership to ensure alignment with the association’s overall mission and strategy.

Increasingly, organizations need to look outside themselves to meet the diverse demands of their audience effectively. As another association CEO we interviewed put it, “I can’t be the CEO of an education company and a membership company and a meetings company. I need to find ways to partner and integrate because it’s changing too fast.”

Coherence: Make the Pieces Work Together

The third essential element of strategy is coherence —ensuring that all parts of your education business work in concert to support your strategic choices.

Richard Rumelt reminds us that strategy is not about bold goals; it’s about a coordinated set of actions. That means your marketing, staffing, pricing, and technology decisions should all reinforce your chosen direction.

For example, an association that aims to serve early-career professionals with stackable credentials should ensure that its:

• Product design emphasizes short, flexible, competency-based learning
• Marketing speaks directly to early-career pain points and aspirations
• Systems support credential stacking and transcript portability
• Staff members are trained to support learners who are new to the field

Coherence also means regularly assessing whether current offerings align with strategy. If a course or program isn’t contributing to your chosen aspiration, serving your priority audience, or supporting your core strengths, it may be time to let it go.

Again, cross-functional coordination is critical, and, for the highest-performing organizations, the focus on coherence extends beyond the education department, into the organization as a whole. Mike Moss, president of the Society for College and University Planning, notes how his organization has made this shift over the past decade: “We’ve committed to operating as a learning-centric organization. That’s not just a philosophical stance — it’s a full-on structure, leadership, and systems change.”

That kind of change doesn’t come from chasing ideas. It comes from executing a coherent, disciplined strategy.

Balance Reach, Revenue, and Impact

To check whether your education strategy is working, consider the three pillars of any healthy learning business:

• Reach: Are you engaging the right learners in the right ways?
• Revenue: Are you generating sustainable income to support growth and reinvestment?
• Impact: Are your offerings making a meaningful difference for learners, employers, and the profession?

When these pillars are out of balance, problems follow.

• Strong reach and revenue, but low impact? Learners won’t come back.
• High impact and reach, but weak revenue? The model isn’t sustainable.
• Good revenue and impact, but limited reach? You risk being a best-kept secret.

Strategic choices should reinforce reach, revenue, and impact. If one is lagging, your context, choices, or coherence may need attention.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

In our work, we’ve seen three common mistakes that derail education strategy:

• Mistaking volume for value.
  More programs don’t mean more impact. Focus on quality and alignment.
• Keeping strategy in a silo.
  Education should be integrated into the organization’s broader strategic thinking — not isolated in a department.
• Skipping the hard choices.
  Trying to serve everyone leads to diluted effectiveness.Prioritize what matters most.

As you work through the strategy process in your organization, make sure everyone involved is aware of these pitfalls and that you are checking periodically to ensure they don’t derail your strategy efforts.

Moving Forward

Getting education strategy right isn’t easy. But it’s essential — for mission fulfillment, for financial sustainability, and for long-term relevance in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Ask yourself:

• Have we taken time to really understand our context?
• Have we made clear, focused choices about our direction?
• Are our programs, systems, and teams aligned in a coherent way?
• Do we have the executive support to embed learning across the organization?

Education is no longer just a service line or a revenue stream. It is infrastructure for member value. It’s how you support your field and demonstrate your relevance.

The associations that succeed will be those that lead with purpose, choose with intention, and operate with coherence.