If we were building associations from scratch today, what would we do differently?

Recently, two ideas got me thinking about associations in a new way: Holly Duckworth’s TEDx talk on third places and James Young’s work on designing for community. Together, they led me to a simple question: If we were building associations from scratch today, would we organize them around products and services or around participation and belonging?

For decades, associations have become increasingly sophisticated in how they deliver value. Those advances have helped organizations scale their impact and better serve their stakeholders. Yet I wonder whether, in the process, we have become so focused on delivering value that we spend less time thinking about how people experience connection, contribution, and community.

At the same time, many associations have become focused on optimizing transactions. Someone attends an event, purchases a publication, enrolls in a course, earns a certification, or accesses a member benefit. The transaction is completed, value is delivered, and the relationship often pauses until the next transaction occurs.

That model is not inherently flawed. Most relationships with associations begin with a transaction of some kind. The challenge is that we often treat the transaction as the destination rather than the beginning of a deeper relationship.

For years, associations have focused on engagement as a strategic objective. We track attendance, registrations, volunteer hours, renewals, and online activity because they tell us whether people are interacting with the organization. What those metrics often fail to reveal is whether people feel connected to it.

A member can attend events, complete courses, and consume content without developing a meaningful connection to the organization or its mission. In contrast, people who contribute, collaborate, volunteer, or mentor often develop a stronger sense of ownership and belonging. That distinction matters because engagement and participation are not the same thing. Engagement tells us someone showed up. Participation reflects a deeper level of involvement and investment, and research shows that meaningful connection is one of the ways belonging begins to emerge.

I was reminded of this years ago when I participated in a certification exam item-writing session. The purpose of the gathering was straightforward. A group of subject matter experts came together to develop exam questions. The organization got exactly what it needed: the questions were written.

Yet over the course of a day and a half, the group accomplished more than writing exam questions. Participants shared experiences, debated technical concepts, learned from one another, and built relationships. A sense of community began to emerge alongside the work itself. By the end of the session, the questions were completed, but the community that had formed around the work was arguably just as valuable.

The organization captured the questions. It never fully captured the community.

That experience has stayed with me because it highlights an opportunity many associations overlook. Community is not separate from the mission. It is often how the mission is accomplished.

People rarely seek out community as an end in itself. They come together around shared interests, challenges, and meaningful work. As they contribute and collaborate, relationships form and the connections that sustain engagement emerge while advancing the mission.

This is where I believe associations have an opportunity to rethink the transaction. Rather than viewing a transaction as the completion of a member interaction, we can begin viewing it as the start of a participation journey.

What if every transaction was intentionally designed to help people discover opportunities to contribute, collaborate, and connect? What if we evaluated our programs not only by the value they deliver, but also by the pathways they create into deeper involvement with the profession and its community?

Designing for community may also help associations reclaim a role many once played in professionals’ lives.

Holly Duckworth argues that many of the traditional third places that once created connection and belonging have diminished over time. The concept is relatively new to me, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to describe a role associations once played for many professionals. Associations were often where people built relationships, found mentors, volunteered, developed leadership skills, and connected with others who shared their interests and challenges.

I wonder whether many associations have drifted away from that role. Not because we stopped caring about community, but because we became increasingly focused on optimizing products, services, and experiences. In many cases, we became exceptionally good at the transaction while becoming less intentional about the community that once grew around it.

If that is true, then one of the greatest opportunities facing associations is not to create something entirely new. It is to reestablish our organizations as places where people can contribute to something larger than themselves, build meaningful relationships, and develop a genuine sense of belonging while advancing a shared mission.

The associations that succeed in the future may not be the ones with the most content, programs, or technology. They may be the ones most successful at helping people move from consumers to contributors and from transactions to a shared sense of purpose.

If we were building associations from scratch today, I suspect we would spend less time asking how to increase engagement and more time asking how to create opportunities for participation and connection. Engagement would still matter, but I think we have it backward. Instead of asking how to create more engagement, perhaps we should be asking how to create more opportunities for people to contribute, connect, and belong. The engagement we seek may simply be the result of getting those things right.