Leaning on membership fees alone leaves associations exposed. The way out starts with knowing what members and business partners need next.
Why do people join associations in the first place?
I've asked variations of that question for 25 years, working alongside association business development teams across the country. The honest answer is almost always some version of the same thing: We're investing in our future selves. We join to sharpen our skills, protect our careers, and stay connected to the people and ideas that matter in our field.
Associations operate within an economy of trust. Peers and mentors, standing at a unique intersection of standards and innovation, collectively work to preserve and advance missions. Commercial organizations want to contribute toward and share in it. That trust also carries a responsibility: Every dollar a member spends with us must earn its place against everything else competing for that same investment in their future.
Right now, that competition is intensifying. Dues alone still make up 37 percent of the average association’s revenue—the single largest, and most exposed, line on the page. According to Momentive Software’s 2025 Association Research Study, conducted with Edge Research, 72 percent of members are now required to complete continuing education as part of their jobs, up from 65 percent just two years ago. That’s a structural, recurring demand—and exactly the kind that associations should be building revenue around.
Here's the tension I see in almost every organization I work with: Members have already told us what they value. Forty-five percent rate career advancement as very important to them, but only 23 to 27 percent of association professionals treat it as an organizational priority—a gap that's held steady since 2020. Members are showing up ready to invest in their careers. The question is whether associations are building the programs worth investing in. So where do you start?
That shift matters more than it sounds. A collection of programs is a booth here, a webinar sponsorship there; a certificate program added because a competitor has one. A well-designed system starts with a question: Who, exactly, are we serving, and how do we help them win the work we share?
This work starts with two ideal customer profiles—one for your members, one for your business partners. The question is the same for both: What does success look like for them right now?
On the member side, that means mapping career trajectory. A midcareer professional navigating a sudden regulatory shift in their industry needs something different than someone just starting out. The more precisely you can identify where your members are, and what’s pressing on them, the more targeted your programs can be.
On the business partner side, it means understanding what sponsors and exhibitors are actually trying to accomplish. In my experience, your partners often reach a larger audience of your ideal members than your own association does. They want access to the economy of trust your association has built, and they want to contribute to it. When member needs and partner expertise genuinely overlap—career advancement on one side, thought leadership and market access on the other—the programs you build don’t feel transactional to either side. That’s where mutual investment follows naturally.
Once you know who you're building for, a few patterns show up repeatedly in the organizations doing this well:
Digital knowledge pathways. Instead of one-off sessions, turn what you already teach into a structured pathway—here's where you start, here's what's next—tied to the real, current pressures your members are facing.
Relationship-based partner programs. Bundle visibility, thought leadership, and shared research into year-round partnerships instead of one-time sponsorships. Your partners want the trust economy you've built almost as much as they want the audience.
Cohorts, councils, and shared experiences. Bring people together around an ongoing challenge, not a single conference session, and allow partners to contribute their own experience, which may be both qualitative and quantitative.
None of this requires reinventing your annual meeting. I've watched associations unlock real revenue just by looking harder at what already happens there: a QR-code-powered live poll turned into its own sponsorship, reserved seating at a general session sold as proximity to a keynote, a preconference webinar and a post conference debrief (both sponsored) that turn one event into a year-round touchstone. Even a simple cause activation, built around something your members already care about, can rally a room in a way a straightforward sales pitch never will.
None of this works, though, if it isn't grounded in value. Chris Capistran, Momentive Software's vice president of sales strategy and acceleration, put it well when we spoke on this topic: “Any program you build must drive revenue and provide real value to members. Members are savvy—they can tell when something's a money grab. Get that balance right and the revenue you generate will fund the next program that keeps people renewing.” That's the whole game. Revenue and value aren't in tension. Done right, they fund each other.
The harder work is cultural, not tactical. Business development still isn't in the DNA of most association teams, and it doesn't need to be treated like a sales function bolted onto a mission-driven organization. It needs air cover from leadership and a real answer to one question, borrowed from strategist Roger Martin: What must be true for us to get where we want to go? Not a plan—a plan is just your annual meeting and this year's curriculum, and you already control both of those. A strategy is the harder, more honest set of choices about where you'll grow and how you'll win.
Members have already told us why they join and what they need next. The only question left is whether we are ready to build an association experience that helps members and the businesses that serve them win together.
