Spark Consulting

AUGUST 3, 2022

We’re at the midpoint of the Top 10 All-Time Spark blog posts, with #5: 10 Tips for Creating an Effective Marketing Piece. The original piece was written in response to a conference presentation I’ve given a handful of times, where I ask participants to submit their marketing pieces ahead of time, I work with the sponsoring organization to mount them on foamboard and place them around the room on easels in advance, and then after sharing the 10 Tips, I hand the attendees markers and

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Spark Consulting

JUNE 29, 2022

In position number 7 of the top ten all time Spark blog posts: Membership 101: Exit Surveys. (I told you the Membership 101 series would be back!). Once again, the advice in the initial post remains solid. To this day, I regularly recommend conducting an exit survey as part of client projects, or as something they should start doing on their own after we’re done, or both.

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Spark Consulting

APRIL 12, 2022

Starting in position 10, Five Tips for Success with Ad Hoc Volunteers. When I first wrote this post in 2014, Peggy Hoffman and I had recently released The Mission-Driven Volunteer. We looked at what associations were offering by way of volunteering – mostly rigidly structured committee service leading in a hierarchical way to board service, after which people were kind of pushed off the volunteering cliff – and what the data said about what people were looking for in their volunteer

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Tips Committee Industry 195

Spark Consulting

MARCH 29, 2022

I first started blogging about association management nearly 15 years ago (RIP Thanks For Playing). When I launched Spark (TEN years ago this year!), I ported all my old blog posts over and just kept on going. I’ve done some cleanup of those old posts, removing my Cool Technology posts (does anyone really still want to read about whatever tech was new 15 years ago?

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Association Management Tips Survey Marketing 195

Spark Consulting

OCTOBER 1, 2021

Join me and the nice folks from Grype Digital on Tuesday, October 12 at 3:30 pm ET for Explosive Growth for Associations Through Better Membership Management , the second episode of their second season of video podcasts. On the pod, we’ll talk about things like: Levels of engagement (not everyone wants to be maximally engaged, and that’s OK!).

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Spark Consulting

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

One last question from my brief series on member engagement, inspired by serving on a virtual panel on engagement, organized by Mary Byers, for the Veterinary Medical Association. Would you rather have a lot of members lightly engaged or fewer members more deeply engaged? First, I guarantee your association does not have the capacity to support every member being fully engaged with everything the association does or offers.

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Spark Consulting

AUGUST 31, 2021

Back before Maddie and I launched The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation , I had been writing a brief series on member engagement, inspired by serving on a virtual panel on engagement, organized by Mary Byers, for the Veterinary Medical Association. We had talked about things like engagement lessons for the pandemic and who is doing engagement well.

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Conference Member Engagement Recruiting Recruitment 221

Spark Consulting

JULY 1, 2021

Maddie and I have a bunch of upcoming free webinars and discussions planned where we’ll be sharing findings and insights from The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward , and we’d love to see you there: The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation, hosted by PROPEL, with special guest Hugh Seaton, Head of Construction Technology Practice, Cimatri (who will talk about the Construction Specifications Institute case study) Frid

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Case Study Technology Review 195

Spark Consulting

JUNE 7, 2021

As my The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward co-author Maddie Grant is fond of quipping, that’s what digital transformation is: culture change + vendor selection. The technologies of digital transformation are: Artificial Intelligence (AI). Cloud. Data analytics. Internet of Things (IoT).

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Strategy Leadership Resources Technology 195

Spark Consulting

JUNE 3, 2021

In our research for The No BS Guide to Digital Transformation: How Intentional Culture Change Can Propel Associations Forward , Maddie Grant and I learned that, while associations definitely still have work to do on the technology front, it’s not technology that’s holding our industry back: it’s culture, and more specifically, culture change.

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Technology Industry Innovation 195

Spark Consulting

MAY 20, 2021

One of the other hot topics on the engagement virtual panel Mary Byers had organized for the Veterinary Medical Association on April 22 was: Who’s doing member engagement well, and what can we learn from them? A few years ago, Anna Caraveli and I wrote Leading from the Outside-In , in which we describe what member-centric engagement looks like, enumerate eight keys to member-centric engagement, and profile 11 different membership organizations that are doing a great job at it.

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Connecticut Member Engagement Organization Education 195

Spark Consulting

MAY 6, 2021

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to appear on a virtual panel on engagement, organized by Mary Byers, for the Veterinary Medical Association. We covered a wide range of topics, a few of which I think others would benefit from thinking about, so I’ll be doing a few related blog posts. Of course, the pandemic was top of mind for everyone. As vaccination rates rise, people (including your members and other audiences) are cautiously poking their heads out of their pandemic hibernation, try

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Member Engagement Member Experience Video Survey 370

Spark Consulting

APRIL 6, 2021

Associations tend to default to a formal tone in communications. It feels safe. It can be hard to nail being appropriately funny, and no one ever got in trouble for being excessively formal, right? Well, no. A colleague recently shared some “tips” that had been sent to presenters for an association virtual event by the virtual event provider.

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Tips Communications Examples Organization 221

Spark Consulting

JANUARY 11, 2021

Monday, January 11, 2021. Susan Robertson, CAE, President and CEO, ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership. Stephen J. Caldeira, Chair of the Board, ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership. Finally, a line has been crossed and associations are standing up to say “enough.”. Many of us in the association community have watched in dismay in the past four years as the Trump administration violated civil rights, our democratic norms, and human decency, and our community, too often, was sile

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United States Leadership Washington Certificate 397

Spark Consulting

DECEMBER 4, 2020

As we look to 2021, I see three main membership challenges for associations: Remember that membership is a lagging indicator. Per Marketing General’s annual Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report , the Q4 2007 economic crash didn’t fully show up in association metrics until 2009. As hard as this is to hear, given what’s happened in associations this year (canceled meetings, revenue down, staff layoffs), it’s unlikely we’ve seen the bottom yet, and it’s likely we won’t see it for another

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Spark Consulting

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

I’m participating in a fundraiser for my favorite nonprofit organization, Reading Partners (where I’m both a tutor and a board member), and ?I’m asking for your financial support.?. Reading Partners works to ensure students from low-income households have the literacy skills they need to succeed in school and life. Although the pandemic has had a significant impact on the ways we work with our young scholars and their families, Reading Partners’ mission remains the same: helping children b

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DC Library Organization 170

Spark Consulting

JULY 7, 2020

Did you miss the webinar Hilary Marsh (Content Company) and I gave last week on content curation and why your association needs to get on board with it to help your members and other audiences deal with information overload? You’re in luck! Thanks to our host Impexium, there’s a free recording available at the Impexium website. In the webinar, Hilary and I: Outline the problem of information overload.

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Content Course 220

Spark Consulting

JUNE 2, 2020

Out of respect for the ongoing uprisings protesting the murder of George Floyd and longstanding, unaddressed racism and racial discrimination in American society, I’ve requested that Association Insights postpone our scheduled Wednesday, June 3 webinar, Leading Engagement from the Outside In, to a later date. I don’t feel it is appropriate to host this session in the middle of yet another tragic moment in our shared history.

Member Engagement 195

Member Engagement Resources 195

Spark Consulting

MAY 19, 2020

Shortly after the coronavirus pandemic stay at home edicts began coming down, a colleague posted a question to LinkedIn: What’s your vision for when we come out of this? I suspect she was looking for stuff like: “associations will embrace smaller, regional, hybrid events” or “employers who were convinced there was no way their staff could work remotely would realize they were wrong.” I responded: We as a society will realize that healthcare must be affordable and ac

Content 195

Content Organization Innovation Leadership 195

Spark Consulting

MAY 15, 2020

If an association wants to move beyond mere aggregation and serve your members by providing real curation, what should you do? To quote my co-author HilaryMarsh: “Stop trying to be Google.” Quoting from our new whitepaper, Cut Through the Clutter: Content Curation, Associations’ Secret Weapon Against Information Overload , Your association’s community is experiencing information overload in a time when it’s become increasingly difficult to assess the quality of that information due t

Content 195

Content Industry Leadership 195

Spark Consulting

MAY 11, 2020

This is probably not news to you, but we’re at an information crisis point. Your members and other audiences are dealing with a flood of information during a time when the role of traditional information gatekeepers has become severely devalued. People are overwhelmed with information, much of it false or untrustworthy, and are increasingly unable to discern what is reliable and what is not.

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Content Case Study Association Management Strategy 341

Spark Consulting

MARCH 20, 2020

It’s time to act like it. Several weeks ago, when it was first becoming apparent to association executives (and everyone else) that the coronavirus pandemic was, in fact, going to be quite serious, most of the industry discussion seemed to revolve around “Do we REALLY have to cancel our conference? What about our revenue!” WHAT ABOUT YOUR ATTENDEES’ HEALTH AND SAFETY?

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Conference Revenue Industry Team 291

Spark Consulting

MARCH 16, 2020

I have to caveat this by saying I can’t help you with what do to with your kids (I don’t have any myself) or with your team telework tech (it’s just me here at Spark). BUT. I have been working for myself from my home office for nearly eight years. Here are some things that work for me, to keep me productive without letting work consume my entire life (well, at least until the times that things get REALLY busy with client work).

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Tips Social Media Products Team 381

Spark Consulting

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

Now that you’ve mapped out the changes you want to make to your membership program, and your board of directors is on board with those changes, how do you go about communicating them to the members who will be affected? In contrast to communicating with your board about changes, dues increases can be the hardest sell to members. “What do you mean my dues are going up?

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Communications Conference Industry Education 248

Spark Consulting

JANUARY 7, 2020

It’s that time of year, when we all think about what happened last year and what we’d like to do differently in the next. Two observations: First, 17 years ago, I realized that “lose 10 pounds and become a better person” was a terrible resolution to make, which is why I never kept it. So I resolved to resolve differently, choosing resolutions that are fun and about something I want to learn or try.

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Committee Review Project Resources 195

Spark Consulting

DECEMBER 13, 2019

When you’ve realized it’s time to make a change to your dues amounts, member benefits, or overall membership structure, how do you convince your board of directors to support it? Particularly if there’s resistance? Let’s start with the easiest case: a dues increase. Your benefits are staying the same, your structure is staying the same, you just have to start charging a bit more for what you’re offering.

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Cost Industry Discount Proposal 195

Spark Consulting

OCTOBER 10, 2019

Let’s say you’re over email and want to take your welcome, retention, and/or renewal communications to the next level. Should you call, or should you text? Well, who are your members? What generations are represented and in what quantities? It’s not just your imagination – Millennials and GenZ genuinely do prefer text to voice calls, by pretty significant majorities (in the US, nearly 3/4 prefer text).

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millennials Member Engagement Committee Software 186

Spark Consulting

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

No, I’m not going to get into which white-label platform you should use – for that, we have ReviewMyCommunity. Take one step back: white-label or public ? That is, the publicly-available, commercial platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, and their ilk). This is a tough one. The advantage – and it’s a BIG one – of using a public platform is that your members are already there.

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Resources Content Technology Cost 279

Spark Consulting

AUGUST 29, 2019

Would you like to? A few months ago, Shelly Alcorn ( Alcorn Associates , Ubiquity University ) and I released a white paper titled Blockchain for Associations: Separating the Hype from the Promise. We released it at digitalNOW, in a session I gave with Katherine Matthews (of NCARB ). Katherine and I talked about: Where blockchain came from. What it is and how it works (in terms a non-tech person can understand).

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Review Technology Industry 30

Spark Consulting

AUGUST 7, 2019

Ah, the grace period, the bane of the membership profession’s experience. Should we have a grace period at all? How long should it be? I will admit to being a hard-ass about grace periods. My preference is none. If your membership lapses on July 31, 2019, then your access is cut off as of 12:01 am August 1. Remember how I recently wrote about rewarding the behavior you want to encourage ?

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Discount Library Process Marketing 186

Spark Consulting

JULY 18, 2019

Which is more member-centric? In most cases, an anniversary renewal cycle – that is, I renew at same time as I joined (or renewed) last year – is going to make the most sense to your members. My annual membership starts when I pay, and I get 12 months of service for my dues. A calendar renewal cycle is generally seen as association-centric.

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Member Engagement Association Management Team Process 186

Spark Consulting

MAY 15, 2019

In my previous post in this series, I concluded with the question: What role, if any, does supplier membership play in this ecosystem? Lewis responded with a strong statement that suppliers should NOT be association members , because they have “divergent interests and motivations” for their relationships with your association. I would argue that there is, or at least can be, a role for supplier membership.

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Committee Certificate Industry Revenue 265

Spark Consulting

MAY 10, 2019

One of the key elements of blockchain networks is the network. This technology is a system-level technology. What that means is that its true power lies in the network effect, in the system. Any one application can have positive (or negative, or both) impacts, but disruptive change will come about as different applications begin to interact with each other.

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Social Media Education Leadership Technology 150

Spark Consulting

MAY 2, 2019

Thanks to the generosity of my friend and colleague Ed Barks , I had the opportunity to attend Influence Across America: The Rise of State and Local Power and the Impact of Digital Media , a National Digital Roundtable panel event at the Newseum earlier this week. Panelists shared some interesting and disturbing statistics, as well as good advice for breaking through the noise and getting local and national media attention for your organization’s signal.

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America Social Media Washington Recruiting 170

Spark Consulting

APRIL 30, 2019

And if so, why? Blockchain for Dummies offers some qualifying questions when you’re trying to figure out whether blockchain is an appropriate solution for your association and for which projects: Do we need to track transactions that involve more than two parties? Is the current system overly complex or costly, possibly due to the need for intermediaries or a central point of control?

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Certificate System Technology Industry 150

Spark Consulting

APRIL 23, 2019

In the spring of 2018, I had the opportunity to attend one of my favorite conferences in the association year: digitalNOW. At that event, among all the cutting-edge content, I heard one word over and over: blockchain. Two things quickly became apparent to me: one, it was an emerging trend associations should pay attention to and two, nobody seemed to really understand it all that well.

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New Mexico Association Management Conference Case Study 186

Spark Consulting

APRIL 11, 2019

[This post is NOT about association management, but many members of the association community are in the DC area, and an outstanding DC nonprofit could REALLY use our help right now.]. You might have read some of the recent coverage ( Post , WTOP , DCist ) of a fairly serious city government screw-up: Serve DC (in the mayor’s office) didn’t bother to file DC’s grant paperwork with the Corporation for National and Community Service this year, which is going to cost the city $3.75M in federal fund

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DC Association Management Education Cost 30