Anyone in the community who deals with associations and/or professional bodies? Is member dissatisfaction a common malaise?
- Feb 17, 2014 11:56 PM
3 Answers
- Feb 18, 2014 8:31 AM
I have been involved with professional associations for quite some time. Two things to consider:
1) Are you involving yourself with the right associations? Some associations are big and directly in your wheelhouse but are passive or oldschool and won't ever really make an impact. Fnd ones that are already making an impact (wanting to make an impact isn't enough).
2) I the right associations, are you participating to make change? Join councils, try to get a role where you can help shape direction.
Best of luck!
- May 10, 2014 8:07 AM
Nearly impossible to satisfy all member wishes. Personal agendas, politics and influential members drive too many executive director decisions unfortunately. Contribute on committee initiatives, events and studies. Rub shoulders with influencers and members if you desire to make headway.
Roger Treese
- May 13, 2014 6:09 AM
Yes, it is common. But the reasons for the malaise varies. Member dissatisfaction can contribute to the malaise.
I am a board member for a professional association of approximately 600 members primarily located in the US but about 15% are in different countries. We deal with member malaise and member dissatisfaction on a regular basis.
Member malaise can be attributed to lack of opportunities to participate in the betterment or growth of the association. While a member pays for access to benefits offered by the association, involvement in some capacity will most assuredly reduce the malaise to just a few.
Member dissatisfaction reveals itself in many ways and can be very personal, e.g. benefits not meeting expectations, dislike of other members' contributions to the association, uncomfortable with association processes. But it can also be a symptom of broken processes in the association. We conduct annual surveys, monitor a private email discussion list, have volunteers on membership care committees that reach out to members in various ways. Through this activity we're able to identify whether dissatisfaction is a personal issue or a broken process.
We're currently working on a broken process that has caused loss of membership over the past 18 months. It was revealed to us through the existing communication channels and processes, and we're almost done with the fix. It began as a technical issue, but because communication was inconsistent and sometimes non-existent, it grew into a personal issue for most of our members. I am confident that before June 2014 we will have fixed the technical problem and continued with our communication process.
I hope this helps.