Yesterday, six of us attended TSAE's class on the association business (trades, societies, foundations, charities, etc.); here are a few thoughts I left with:
Need for more document and content management
In essence, associations combine people and information. Beyond needing content management for their public website articles, associations have growing need for technology to speed up, simplify, distribute, and lower costs for internal as well as member and public documents:
- job postings, resumes, vitae, position descriptions
- bylaws, policies, procedures, compliance materials
- agendas, meeting minutes, action lists
- budgets, reports, status, projections
- proposals, report cards, evaluations
- directories, rosters, working papers
- program descriptions, program materials/distributables, event photos
Since so many associations deal with huge part-time, remote communities with high turn-over (board members, officers, chapter officers, volunteers), the communication and publication burden is crushing. It strikes me that associations need Web 2.0 approaches to document/content management more urgently than other industries and fields. Rather than author their business documents in word processors and mail out bound materials, they would benefit from server-based collaborative authoring (wikis) from which hard copy could be generated only as needed locally. Rather than handle agendas and minutes in emails and handouts, they would benefit from centralization in a wiki that could handle their updates, archiving, and approval workflows. Rather than accept paper submissions for articles and competition entries, they would conduct the entire process through browsers and viewers, via a secured process. Rather than wait for budget printings and formal reports, business status should be available in real time, via secured reports. By surrendering having documents and spreadsheets living on local workstations and harddrives, associations could realize tremendous gains in cost-effectiveness, IMO.
Emerging trends for associations
I very much agreed (from observing my own societies) with the trends he said must be faced:
- globalization is changing competition and role of associations
- volunteer leaders must stay ahead of the curve and help members face risk/uncertainty
- members are demanding higher ROI than before
- technology will make or break you (e-learning, e-publishing, 24/7 service)
- expect less revenue from dues; more from new sources
- focus must shift to next-gen workers
- operations (accounting, IT) need greater expertise
- governance must speed up and become more collaborative (technology)
- technology will bring new competitors; may need to ally with old competitors
- plan for more consolidations
From an AFP Perspective
It sounds like it was an interesting seminar. The Association of Fundraising Professionals also looks at apply similar studies to understand trends within the more 'charitable' sector groups - hospitals, universities, health care and social services, cultural groups etc. Their trends are similar and over the year organizations that have relied upon donors giving whenever they're asked are struggling to keep their revenues at the same levels. Their push is towards perpetual monthly giving, major giving and planned giving while making the most of their direct marketing programs. I've seen some interesting changes in how the web is impacting the charitable world - streaming video fundraising, virtual events and blogging are becoming more mainstream as organizations seek to turn their website visitors into their online fundraisers. But still there, we face some reluctance to rely too heavily on the web alone. It's hard to build a relationship with an email address but thanks to the web 20 concepts, it's becoming a bit easier. AFP is hosting it's annual international conference in Dallas. It might be interesting for you to attend that conference too and see how that group is different than an ASAE member. You can see more at www.afpnet.org/international_conference