copyright 2000 Leipper Management Group. All rights reserved
Please address comments or questions to webmaster@leipper.org
Last updated
15 June 2000
Have you considered calling your annual fees investments rather than dues? This would be a change in how you view the relationship between the association and its members. An investor purchases an interest in an organization taking a stake in its success. A dues payer purchases of goods or services from an organization. Investors want their organization to succeed in order to get the best return on their investment. Dues payers just want it to live long enough to be able to provide the goods or services they expect to get.
The returns for an investment in a professional association are not usually monetary as would be expected in a business investment. Instead, the success of the association provides professional, career, and personal returns for growth and improvement. An investment in an association is an investment in a profession, an investment in a career, and an investment in oneself.
Invest in your profession - The association provides current information about the profession through publications, meetings and conferences. It facilitates advocacy through strength in numbers sharing common goals. Certification programs can provide an acknowledgment of professional competency. An association can define a profession or field and its standards.
Invest in your career - The association provides networking opportunities and mentor programs. It actively encourages skills and knowledge development through participation in boards, committees, and special task forces. It provides a forum for developing and expressing ideas through publishing in association newsletters and journals and presenting at association meetings and events.
Invest in yourself - The association provides the opportunity to try new things, to gain recognition, and to enhance your sense of achievement. Involvement in association activities provides new perspectives and sense of community.
The dues payment versus investment difference is one of those paradigm things. As an analogy, consider being lost in the jungle. How you see your situation influences what you do. A survivalist might make camp and wait. Another might head downhill looking for a river as a way out. A third might climb a tree to see what is nearby. A fourth might just panic.
An association collecting dues tends to think that it must provide dues payers with some tangible benefits as a reward for their payment. Changing paradigms to collecting annual fees as investments would emphasize the development and enhancement of assets which the investor would see as producing a good return.
To make a good investment a potential investor looks at indications of a successful association. These are the same factors that make a successful business: What is the past record of success? What is the potential for growth? What are the accomplishments past and present? How is the association run? Who are the association leaders and what are their qualifications? Is the association on a sound financial basis? Does the association know its market and its products and can it communicate effectively?
As the leader of your association, you _ are _ invested. Is your job to see that services and products are delivered for dues paid or is it to advance the growth and success and health of the association? Do you have a goal, a plan, and a direction for yourself in your association? Are you an investor or are you a dues payer?
--
from your Association
Headquarters:
Leipper Management Group at TechComm
Labs«.
Education, management, and information services
especially for small businesses and associations.
-----------------------------------------------------------
to
subscribe, unsubscribe, or comment, reply or send a note to
headquarters@leipper.org
See
http://leipper.org/leadership
for selected previously sent messages
-----------------------------------------------------------