Is unmembership the future of associations?

unmembership: photograph of an outdoor chair with the words "MEMBERS ONLY" written on the chair backUnmembership? What’s that?” It’s a word invented by my creative friend Mitchell Beer during a wonderful ninety minute coffee break during the 2014 PCMA Convening Leaders conference a few weeks ago. Let me explain.

First, some definitions. In this post I use the term “formal member” to refer someone who has paid dues to be an association member. “Informal members” are those people who would currently consider themselves to have a significant connection with an association. Unlike informal membership, the exact number of formal members of an association can be quantified at any moment from an AMS report. Associations that have no formal members use what Mitchell calls an unmembership model.

The role of membership in association business models

Over the past few years there’s been a growing debate about the role of membership in association business models. I’m sure I’ve only heard a portion of it, but a great place to start is Jeff De Cagna‘s excellent July 2012 articles Five reasons why membership is killing association business models Part IPart II, and Part III. (I’ve included links to some other discussions at the end of this post.)

Jeff’s reasons for concern are that membership-centric business models:

  • organize all value around the membership relationship;
  • tend to focus on association outputs instead of stakeholder outcomes;
  • often depend on cross-subsidies that create unintended consequences;
  • ask members to make the most important decisions about new value creation; and
  • require a significant investment of human effort for an insufficient return.

A couple of examples of unmembership

I agree with all of Jeff’s arguments. Rather than repeat them I recommend you go and read the original articles. In this post I’ll share my experience as the co-founder and president of two small associations, which now both use the unmembership model.

The Marlboro School Association

One of these associations, a 501(c)(3), is so small that its lack of formal members is not especially remarkable. The Marlboro School Association (MSA) was founded in 1994 to raise an endowment for the small K-8 public school in the Vermont town (2000 census population, 978) where I live. Endowment income is used to improve attending students’ educational experience. The MSA was set up using an unmembership model right from the start. Volunteers run this non-profit, which has built a $250,000 endowment over the last twenty years. The informal members of the MSA are those community members who support the work of the MSA through donations of money or their time. We have no need for formal members.

edACCESS

The other association, edACCESS, a 501(c)(6), was founded in 1992 as a vehicle for administrative IT staff at small schools to explore the use of some amazing new devices called “personal computers”. For ten years, edACCESS used an annual dues membership model. At the time it seemed necessary. Potential vendors for our annual trade show would ask us how many members we had, and we felt compelled to be able to give them a number.

But over the years it became clear that maintaining formal membership was more trouble than it was worth. We discovered that tracking and collecting dues from formal members was distracting us from our core mission: supporting and fostering a community of informal members who shared the association’s purpose. In 2002 we abandoned our formal membership model. The trade show vendors didn’t seem to mind, because by then they were asking how many decision-makers would be attending our annual conference, and we had good information available for them.

Using volunteers

Volunteers ran edACCESS for sixteen years. In 2008, when I stopped consulting in the educational IT field and began a professional shift to meeting design, I asked the organization (the board, our conference steering committee, and the participants at the annual conference) if it would consider paying me to continue to coordinate its activities. Now I am the sole paid, very part-time, staff member (volunteers receive various perks and we reimburse their expenses). [Update: I stepped down from running edACCESS in 2017.]

The annual conference process effectively uncovers participants’ issues and occasionally leads us to hold further focused events during the year. A listserv (old-fashioned, but effective) and private wiki provide places for community members to access resources, ask questions and get support at any time. We also run a site-visit program that allows interested schools to receive targeted consulting for modest fees.

What is the edACCESS revenue model? Our income comes almost entirely from our events—the vast majority from our annual 3½-day conference. We construct our event budgets to cover our modest administrative needs. Over the years we have built up sufficient funds to weather several years of poorly attended or canceled events, though we have had no problems so far during our 22 years.

What can we conclude from these examples?

First of all, I hope they illustrate that unmembeship is a viable path for small associations. The MSA has enjoyed a few hundred informal members during its history, edACCESS a few thousand. Both associations are fulfilling their missions while maintaining healthy finances. As Joe Rominiecki comments in his article referenced below, adopting an unmembership model “removes some complacency; the organization has to be relevant to its community, or the community will just go elsewhere. They haven’t committed money in advance that might keep them around.”

What about associations that supply other benefits to their members? Industry research, lobbying, and chapter support, for example, all cost money to provide. I think there’s a role here for tying support to unbundled programs using a Kickstarter approach. “Want your association to do X? $Y is what such-and-such level of X will cost. Here are suggested donation amounts, (which might be associated with specific individual/corporate benefits). If pledges reach $Y we’ll do X, otherwise we won’t.” Funding models for potential programs would incorporate the associated administrative expenses incurred. In other words, rather than guess or impose what your association community wants, let them choose for themselves.

“Free membership” association models

I haven’t said anything so far about “free membership” association models that straddle the formal and informal definitions I’ve given above. Clearly, as the rapid growth of Doximity shows, there can be demand for a free service when the target “member” is a well-compensated professional defined by third-party certification. The question in my mind is whether it’s possible to generate sufficient revenue to pay for the “free” service. In Doximity’s case, revenue currently seems to be a combination of advertising, LinkedIn-like recruiting firm fees, and, perhaps, ultimately consumer subscriptions to some kind of referral service. Time will tell whether this is a sustainable model.

Finally I don’t think that all associations will embrace an unmembership model in the future. For example, any associations that have a lock on key certification requirements or continuing education for their industry are very unlikely to give up the membership income that their members essentially have to provide to become or remain certified in their field. Nevertheless, I expect there to be a growing trend towards unmembership associations providing flexible unbundled services to the informal members who find them of value.

Other posts that may be of interest on the role of membership in associations

Are Free Membership Models the Future for Associations? by Joshua Paul, Socius, March 2011
Who Belongs to Whom? by Joe Rominiecki, Associations Now, September 2013
New Social Network for Docs Already Outpaces AMA Membership, by Rob Stott, Associations Now, January 2014

Photo attribution: Flickr user sonofgroucho

3 thoughts on “Is unmembership the future of associations?

  1. Thanks for sharing this, Adrian. Your example of EdACCESS makes me think of the concept of “dark social” that Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic coined in 2012 (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/dark-social-we-have-the-whole-history-of-the-web-wrong/263523/). His point was that a large amount of content sharing and social connection on the web happens in ways that can’t be tracked and aren’t visible to other, e.g. more article links get shared via email than via Twitter or Facebook share widgets, etc. I bring this up because I suspect that our society is full of organizations like EdACCESS that do a lot of the networking, knowledge sharing, and collaborating that associations do but eschew formal membership models because their size and mission simply don’t require it. They’re hard to track because they’re smaller and, in many cases, don’t have full-time employees who would be potential members of an organization like ASAE. In short, I think unmembership as you’ve described it here is likely alive and well. Another metaphor might be the “silent majority.”

    Overall, I think size and mission are key factors in determining the membership model. As a group gets bigger and/or its mission gets broader (these may likely coincide), I think the advantages of a more formal membership model grow, but it’s hard to know where that tipping point is. And there are options in between, from totally open to join for just an email address to nominal dues levels to high dues levels, so maybe membership models could be arranged on a scale or spectrum.

    In any case, I love your idea to adapt the kickstarter model to funding new initiatives in a group or membership organization. I think that could be employed at an organization of any size or any membership model. Would love to see an example of an association trying that if you know of any.

    Thanks again for offering your thoughts to the conversation!

  2. Adrian, we’ve had some discussions about this in Hangouts over time. I do think the “unmembership” model (with the exceptions of industry certification type organizations) will be one that will be a winner in the future. Millennials seem to be gravitating to Meetups and other looser, ad hoc type groups.

    Since events, such as trade shows, are usually primary revenue generators for many associations, an unmembership model could be a logical leap. But it will require a total business strategy overhaul if membership fees are also necessary to keep the association alive. That’s what will be difficult. I’m seeing some associations struggle with this issue already.

    Like it or not, associations are going to have to deal with these new realities.

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