2015

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Does Your Association’s Structure Stifle Success?

Associations Now

A startup mentality can help an association generate new ideas. But success has less to do with “failing fast” than knowing how your organizational structure stands in your way. Silicon Valley is the last place you’d look for hard-core fans of challenging Irish playwrights, but in recent years a few lines by Samuel Beckett have become a cliché in the startup culture there : “Try again.

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Free Expert Webinar: Using Facebook to Boost Engagement

Wild Apricot

Have you considered using Facebook groups as a channel for connecting members? In our latest Free Expert Webinar, John Haydon - the author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies - will reveal his best kept tips and tricks for building a thriving online community.

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Retention is a Relationship

Spark Consulting

'And you can’t claim to have a relationship with people you don’t know. This topic has come up frequently with clients in the past six months, both within full engagements, where we’ve been looking at how to increase membership, and in speaking engagements, where I’m trying to help chapter leaders learn how to be more effective.

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Why Is Strategic Planning Repelling Association Boards?

SCD Group

“To dream big or dream small takes the same amount of energy. So, why not stretch a little bit?” – Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev A potential client called asking if I could facilitate a “deep dive session” on how to grow the association. As we talked, I shared with him the “strategic intent process” I use with organizations seeking to envision their future and create steps to help them get there.

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How To Cultivate Community Affinity Throughout The Generosity Journey

Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio, Director of Corporate Brand

This session will dive into how to create rich generosity experiences that foster long-lasting relationships. You’ll walk away with actionable insights to redefine how you engage with your supporters—emphasizing trust, engagement, and community over transactional giving models. 🤝 Industry expert Tim Sarrantonio will explore data-backed strategies to engage supporters as active participants in a community that values their contributions and shared ideals.

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The Quantified Community

Higher Logic

Many people think that the Holy Grail for community managers is proving a community’s ROI. Wrong! In Rachel Happe’s Super Forum keynote address, she said that many people misunderstand this point. The Holy Grail for community managers isn’t proving ROI -- sometimes when you’re starting out, it’s negative -- it’s improving the value of your community to ultimately increase ROI.

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Core Values Are Not Enough

Jamie Notter

Core values seem to be somewhat popular among companies that get involved in culture work. It's almost a necessary box to tick. Gather your staff for an off-site, have them reflect about their personal values, then the corporate values, and then narrow down and word-smith your list of values so they can then be printed into posters you put on the wall.

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15 Predictions About Future Conferences And Shifting Attendance Part 1

Velvet Chainsaw

Every conference experiences change. Well, at least is should experience some change. Especially if it’s a healthy and growing conference. Yet some conference organizers—those that keep their finger on the intersection of society, their profession and their customers’ industry—sense that they are in the midst of radical change. It’s the kind that only happens every few decades.

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How Can Nonprofits Switch From Scarcity to Abundance Mindsets When It Comes To Self-Care?

Beth Kanter

Flickr Photo by TheeErin. The November Nonprofit Blog Carnival is about the theme of how nonprofits can move from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. I’ve been thinking a lot about scarcity and abundance mindsets lately because the first chapter of the Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Impact without Burnout book I’m writing with Aliza Sherman asks this question: “Why do people who work for nonprofits not practice self-care and burnout?

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11 Things You Know if You’ve Planned a Lobby Day

Beekeeper Group

If you work in Grassroots or Government Affairs, you’ve probably helped to plan a Lobby Day. And if so, you know that… 1. Your work day will start at 6am. And that’s after months of intensive planning. 2. At breakfast, one of your speakers will go over their allotted time throwing off your detailed schedule. 3. Even when you confirm the day before, Hill offices will change it up on you. 4.

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How to Increase Membership Renewal

Dive deep into essential elements that drive member retention. Learn why members may hesitate to renew. Discover actionable techniques to encourage their return and foster lasting engagement. Uncover reasons members choose not to renew. Learn effective tactics to elevate member engagement and communication. Explore methods to encourage member renewal and active participation in your association Download now to take charge of your membership retention strategy!

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Six Ways to Attract Engaged Members in 2015

Wired4Leadership

'Will “Castle and Moat” Strategies Help You Win Engaged Members? Active, engaged members remain the number one challenge for associations and professional societies. Why do so many nonprofits end up leaving them stranded? There are great strategies for assuring success in recruiting, retaining and engaging members if you’ll commit the time and resources to making … Continue reading Six Ways to Attract Engaged Members in 2015 → You are reading Six Ways to Attract Eng

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The State of Email Design Stinks

Associations Now

If you’d like to push the envelope with an email message, you might be in for a world of pain. Like web design in general a decade ago, email design remains mired in a set of inconsistent standards and poor rendering support by popular clients. The result is that email marketers are often stuck playing it safe. One thing you may not be aware of about the work I do on Associations Now is that it extends all the way to the daily email we send out.

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Your Volunteers Rock! Be Sure to Tell Them How During National Volunteer Week

Wild Apricot

'April 12 to 18th is National Volunteer Week in Canada and the U.S. Here are some resources to help you recognize and celebrate with your volunteers - including our Expert Webinar on "Converting Joiners to Stayers", tips and tools from Volunteer Canada and Points of Light.

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Free Expert Webinar: Converting Volunteers From Joiners to Stayers

Wild Apricot

'Effective volunteer onboarding can lead to more motivated, satisfied volunteers – who not only join, but stay and become actively engaged. Here are details on our upcoming free Expert Webinar about Volunteer Onboarding with Tobi Johnson.

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How to Create a Winning Event Marketing Strategy

Events hold the power to create lasting impressions and meaningful connections. They are not only occasions for celebration but also valuable marketing opportunities. Event marketing has become an essential component of successful business strategies, enabling organizations to engage with their target audience and create memorable experiences. However, behind every successful event lies a well-thought-out marketing strategy.

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Introducing the Wild Apricot Podcast!

Wild Apricot

Introducing the Wild Apricot Podcast! Our new monthly podcast series caters to the needs of small organizations everywhere. Lori Smith and Farhad Chikhliwala, facilitate discussion groups, conduct 1-on-1 interviews and talk to experts in a variety of fields.

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17 Free Non-profit Webinars For July 2015

Wild Apricot

This summer is a great time to get ahead on your non-profit education. Here's a list of 17 FREE live webinars that offer up a host of learning opportunities.

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There Are 100 Million Millennials - Are You Ready?

Higher Logic

Generations expert (and my co-author and partner) Jamie Notter recently posted this extensive article detailing some numbers research he has been doing around exactly how many Millennials there are. It’s important stuff, so I’m going to interrupt my regular column to point you to it. Here’s an excerpt: When you look at the most recent population projections from the Census Bureau, it gets even more interesting.

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Why Associations Are Making Their Private Member Community the Centerpiece of Their Membership Marketing Strategy [Research]

Socious

Each year, membership marketing firm, Marketing General (MGI), publishes the results of their Membership Marketing Benchmarking survey. It is the association industry’s deepest look into trends, tools, and tactics. This year over 900 associations participated, making the 2015 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report one of the strongest narratives to date on how to grow membership.

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The Ultimate Guide to Monetizing Customer Learning

Every decision that goes into your learning monetization strategy matters for your organization’s bottom line. Our research has shown a clear correlation between high program maturity (and ROI!) and choosing the right monetization strategy. This eBook contains clear, actionable ways to approach packaging and pricing models that will help your association grow revenue, improve profitability, and drive expansion into new markets.

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Cancer Does What It Wants

Jamie Notter

As many of you know, I was diagnosed with larynx cancer earlier this year. I had a small growth on my vocal chords that turned out to have some cancer in it. They removed the growth (while preserving my vocal chords, thank you very much) and this June I went through radiation treatment to make sure there was no cancer left in the system. I'm told that it's all gone now, and from here on out they'll just monitor me.

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What Makes a Good Team?

Jamie Notter

'It’s not a random collection of your “best” people. We tend to think that putting the smartest, most capable people together on a team is the best decision, but some research I saw reported in the New York Times says otherwise. High IQs of team members was not a predictor of team success. Their study of effective teams identified three characteristics that made some teams generally “smarter” than others: Equal participation.

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The Four Trends That Shaped the Millennials

Jamie Notter

I spoke this week at the Direct Marketing Association's annual meeting --twice actually: I did a "book club" session on When Millennials Take Over , and then I had a concurrent session on "What the Experienced Marketer Can Learn from Millennials." In the latter session I was able to talk in more detail about something that I don't always get to talk about: what exactly shaped the Millennial generation.

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14% of Zappos Employees Quit–and That’s a Good Thing

Jamie Notter

I wrote a few months ago about Zappos' experiment with Holacracy , a system of management that discards the traditional hierarchy in favor of a flexible and dynamic one where employees are more responsible for managing themselves. Zappos (1,500+ employees) is the largest company to implement the system, so I'm curious to see how it rolls out. They started by implementing it in just a few departments, but as they move towards a full roll-out, CEO Tony Hsieh recognized that not everyone would real

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2024 Association Survey Results Report

2024 Association Survey Results Report For the 10th year, association professionals across the U.S. and Canada provided a look at the inner workings of their organizations when they replied to GrowthZone’s annual survey. Read the 2024 survey results report to see how your association compares: Top Challenges Retention Rates Non-Renewal Reasons Automatic Renewals Reinstatement Strategies Member Engagement Changes & Strategies Why Members Join Non-Dues Revenue Sources Dues Increases, and more

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What If There Were 100 Million Millennials? (Because There Are)

Jamie Notter

Warning: this is a fairly long post that delves into numbers somewhat deeply. But here's the good news: I've got some surprising revelations about the size of the different generations, so be patient and read through to the end! It is commonly stated that Generation X is a relatively small generation, sandwiched between the two largest generations in U.S. history: the Baby Boomers and the Millennials.

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Hierarchy, Holacracy, and Zappos on next #CultureChat

Jamie Notter

This Thursday, May 28th, at 1pm ET we will convene the next #CultureChat session, and this month's focus will be on hierarchy. Specifically, we'll be digging into something that has emerged as a bit of a hot topic these days: Holacracy. In case you haven't heard, Holacracy is a system of management for organizations that is arguably the first viable alternative to a command-and-control hierarchy that we have seen since management was invented 100 years ago.

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Study: To Retain Millennial Employees, Organizations Must Adopt New Technologies

Associations Now

With millennials now representing the largest segment of the U.S. workforce, they’re bringing new ideas and preferences with them, setting the stage for changes in workplace behavior and technology use. Employers need to address them now. As a younger generation who grew up using technology, millennials expect companies and organizations to be cutting-edge adopters, using the most up-to-date hardware and software to add flexibility and ease to their workflow, according to a new study from CompTI

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How A Group of Librarians Found Humor In a Facebook Hack

Associations Now

If you have to get hacked, you might as well find the humor in it. That was one of the American Library Association’s main takeaways after it lost control of its Facebook page last month. A member of ALA’s social media team shares some insights from the experience. Nobody wants to wake up to a message that their organization’s website or social media accounts have been hacked, especially over a holiday weekend.

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The Retention Ripple Effect: Nonprofit Staff and Donor Dynamics

Speaker: Andrew Olsen, CFRE - EVP, Fundraising Solutions at DickersonBakker | Kat Landa, CFRE, CSD - SVP, Talent Solutions at DickersonBakker

Across the nonprofit sector, organizations invest heavily in donor retention efforts, yet the struggle of cultivating lasting relationships remains. While attracting new donors is crucial, the lack of repeat donors poses significant financial risks. Through a comprehensive analysis of industry data, experts argue that there is a direct correlation between donor burnout, donor retention, and the talent retention crisis.