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What kept associations running ten years ago will not carry them through the next five. Four decisions now separate the boards that adapt from the ones that run out of options.
Most associations don't fail because of one bad year. They fail because a board spent a decade putting off four decisions until circumstances made them.
Let me tell you about a phone call.
A woman rang me recently. She had been the secretariat of a significant small association for more than ten years, and she was retiring. She wanted help handing everything over properly. Reasonable enough.
So we asked the questions we always ask. What website are you running? What membership system?
She named the website. Then she explained that the member data — all of it — lived in spreadsheets she had built and maintained herself.
The more we talked, the clearer the picture became. The systems worked because she knew where everything was. She knew how the processes ran and how to fix them when they broke. But that knowledge sat almost entirely in one person's head — and that person was walking out the door.
Then we spoke with the Chair, and a second problem surfaced. Several basic governance and compliance requirements were not where they needed to be. Over the years, board members had drifted into operational work they had neither the time nor the training to do well.
None of this happened overnight. The association had “managed fine” for years. That is exactly the problem.
I speak with small and medium associations constantly — the ones that run on a modest budget, a loyal membership, a hardworking committee and one or two key people. For a long time, that model worked. It is now quietly failing, and most boards won't see it until something forces the issue.
Here are the four decisions I believe boards need to make now — before they get made for them.
If your entire membership operation runs on a spreadsheet that only one person fully understands, that is the first thing I would fix.
The spreadsheet itself isn't the enemy. The problem is everything it can't do — and everything that walks out the door when the person who built it leaves.
Can you tell, today, which members have lapsed and which are about to? Can you see who has engaged with the association in the past twelve months and who has gone quiet? Can renewals and reminders run automatically, or does someone have to remember? And if your key person resigned tomorrow, could anyone else step in and understand how the whole thing works?
That last question is what the phone call was really about. The retirement didn't create the association's problems. It exposed problems that had been building for years — undocumented systems, ageing technology, and critical knowledge held by a single person with no backup.
This is the most fixable item on the list. Membership systems are no longer the preserve of large, well-funded associations. There are capable platforms at almost every price point now, and even a modest one will tell you more about your members, your renewals and your retention than a spreadsheet ever will. The cost of getting this wrong — losing a decade of member knowledge overnight — is far higher than the cost of fixing it.
Document your processes. Review your technology. And make sure no single person is the only one who knows how your association actually runs.
The income model that carried your association for thirty years may not carry it for the next five.
Associations now compete in markets that barely existed twenty years ago. Commercial operators run conferences in sectors associations once owned. Private providers deliver the training members used to get only from their association. Consultants, publishers and online communities offer the information and networking that were once among the strongest reasons to belong.
Competition for the member's dollar has never been fiercer. That forces two very different conversations, depending on where your association sits.
The first is for organisations with thinning revenue and few reserves. At what point does the board ask, honestly, whether the association is still viable on its own? Could it share services with a like-minded body? Could two organisations merge into one stronger voice for the same members?
And — the conversation almost nobody wants to have — is there a point at which the responsible decision is to wind up while the organisation still can, on its own terms, with its obligations met and its legacy intact?
A merger is not a failure. Winding up responsibly is not a failure. The failure is the board that clings on for another three years and eventually collapses in a way that helps no one.
I want to sit on that one, because it is the hardest thing I say to boards. A merger is not a failure. Winding up responsibly is not a failure. The failure is the board that clings on for another three years, burns through what little it has, damages relationships and reputations, and eventually collapses in a way that helps no one — least of all the members it was trying to protect. Knowing the moment to act, and acting with dignity, is one of the most difficult and most honourable things a board can do.
The second conversation is the opposite problem: associations sitting on substantial reserves they refuse to use. I see organisations bank a surplus year after year while their technology ages, their systems creak and their people are asked to do more with less. Caution is understandable. But cash in the bank is not a strategy. Reserves exist to protect the organisation — and to give it the capacity to invest in its own future. The question is not “how much do we have?” It is “what are we doing with it to make sure we still matter in five years?”
Passion for the industry is not a qualification to govern it. Most associations still recruit directors as though it were.
Volunteer directors are the backbone of this sector, and their contribution is enormous. But the responsibilities around the board table have changed. Members expect their association to run professionally. Compliance obligations have grown. Boards now have to weigh financial and legal risk, employment issues, privacy, cybersecurity, strategy and technology — and understand shifting member expectations well enough to decide where the organisation is heading.
Yet many associations still elect whoever is willing to nominate. That is a genuine governance risk. A board needs people who can read a financial report, question management properly, see risk coming and think past the next twelve months.
The answer is not to push out good volunteers. It is to be deliberate about who sits at the table. What skills does the organisation actually need? What already exists around the board? Where are the gaps? A skills matrix, a proper board performance review and a real succession plan are not occasional exercises. They are part of running the association.
There is a lever here that didn't exist a few years ago. Used well, AI now takes a serious amount of routine work off small teams — drafting, administration, first-cut analysis, research, routine correspondence. It can let a lean association punch well above its weight. But it replaces none of the judgement. It doesn't know your members, your history or the politics of your industry, and it cannot decide whether what it produces is right for your association. The answer to a stretched team is not necessarily more people. It is the right people, with the right skills, supported by the right tools — and a board capable of overseeing all of it.
Running an association costs far more than it did a few years ago, and those costs are not coming back down. So the decision in front of most boards is blunt: raise your fees, or slowly lose the capacity to deliver what members expect.
Insurance, wages, superannuation, IT, software, audit, venues, catering, compliance — nearly every line has climbed. Add the drift of small software subscriptions that individually look trivial and collectively become a real expense. If membership income has stayed flat through all of that, the shortfall has to come from somewhere.
Some boards freeze fees for years because they believe they're protecting members. I understand the instinct. But a fee held at the same level for a decade while costs rise every year doesn't protect members — it quietly hollows out the association's ability to serve them. Reviewing fees annually, and lifting them at least in line with rising costs, is not unreasonable. It is basic stewardship.
But you cannot simply raise the price and hope. Every increase has to come with a clear account of what members get for it. If you can't put that into plain words, the problem isn't the fee — it's that you don't yet know clearly enough what members are actually paying for.
And watch your cash flow, not just your annual result. An association can post a healthy surplus at year end and still be unable to pay a conference deposit three months out. The annual result tells you whether you made money. Cash flow tells you whether you can pay the bills when they land. Both matter, and boards pay far too little attention to the second.
Systems. Revenue. People. Money. Four decisions, one common thread: every one of them requires a board to stop simply managing the association it inherited and start building the association it needs to become.
This does not mean every small association needs a big staff, an expensive platform or a fortune in reserves. It means systems that suit its size, a revenue model that adds up, people with the right skills, and a board willing to decide before circumstances decide for it.
I have watched associations make that shift and come out stronger. I have also watched organisations postpone the hard conversations year after year until there were almost no options left. The difference is rarely money. It is usually a board's willingness to look honestly at where the organisation stands today — not where it likes to think it stands.
That woman's association didn't develop its problems the day she announced her retirement. Her retirement simply switched the lights on.
If you're not sure where your own association stands, that is exactly where to start. Look at your systems. Look at your board. Look at your people. Look at where the money comes from and where it goes. Then have the conversations you've been putting off.
At AES, those four conversations are most of what we do. If you'd like an honest, outside read on where your association really sits — and what to do about it — that's the conversation to have now, while you still have every option open.
Author: Nick Koerbin is Executive Director of Association Executive Services
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Across Australia and New Zealand, CEOs and Executive Directors are moving on. Some are retiring. Some have gone to larger organisations.
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appointing replacements.
The encouraging part is the calibre of the people coming in. Many are genuinely well suited to the job — capable executives with strong
records behind them. A good number are stepping into an association CEO role for the first time.
Most associations can provide a long list of membership benefits. They may include professional development, advocacy, networking, industry information, events, resources, accreditation, discounts and access to specialist advice. However, a list of benefits does not necessarily explain why someone makes the decision to join.
While every Board is different, the same governance issues appear time and again. One of the most common is allowing one person’s behaviour
to dominate the Board table.
Almost every Board has experienced it at some point. One director who seems to consume more time and energy than everyone else combined.
How we help membership based, not-for-profit associations now and into the future.
