Steven Worth
Nine common characteristics successful associations share, including:
Defined vision, mission and goals
Board members and staff understand their complementary roles and work well together
Customer/market focused
Strategic planning sessions conducted regularly
Broader market research undertaken on a regular basis
Identify and develop key strategic alliances with other organizations
Structured to meet present and future global needs
Specific business plans back strategy
Focus on products and services; dominance of non-dues versus dues revenues
The three areas that matter most in measuring success:
Relevancy—Are you responding to market need?
Insightfulness—are you preparing for where these needs will have moved in 5, 10, and 15 years?
Efficiency/effectiveness—are you operating efficiently? Do you have the market-focused tools and resources to achieve your mission? Are your operational and governance structures driven by your mission or is your mission driven by your structure?
How can you get from where you are to where you need to be, including:
Knowing the difference and the progressive steps needed to get from being international to being multinational to being global
Knowing that all membership organizations have a life cycle that includes four steps (the early years, adolescence, maturity, and affirmation or decline) any one of which could be their undoing if they are not recognized and handled correctly.
Participants brought their own examples of organizational relevance—or not!—and enjoyed a thorough, frank and off-the record discussion of what was on their minds as association managers!
During this breakfast briefing session participants compared and discussed what makes membership so relevant and valued among the world’s fastest growing associations and how these attributes have changed in recent years. Takeaways included:
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Steven Worth
President
Plexus Consulting Group, LLC
Steve has over thirty years experience as a professional consultant and has provided strategic consulting assistance to associations, businesses and governments in areas covering organizational restructuring, public policy, and public and organizational communications in 110 countries. Steve speaks and publishes widely on public policy and management issues. He has an advanced degree from the Sorbonne and l’Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris and an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University. He is the author of The Power of Partnership and The Association Guide to Going Global. He also teaches graduate level courses in international marketing and the marketing of services at Johns Hopkins University.
Ensuring
embership
is Relevant
and Valued—
Facilitated