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When it is renewals season. Across Australia and New Zealand, professional and industry associations are sending invoices to their members right now. Most treat it as an administrative task. That is the first mistake.
A renewal invoice is not a request for last year's money. It is a request to pay for next year's benefits. The moment a member — individual or corporate — opens that invoice, they make a decision: renew, or walk.
Your long-term stayers will renew on autopilot. But plenty of others are sitting there asking one question — did I get value, and am I prepared to invest again? Your renewal letter has to answer that before they ask it. Make the year's achievements clear, and make what is coming next even clearer.
Four things every renewal letter must do:
A word on the benchmark. The real measure of successful membership isn't how many you sign up. It's how many you keep. But be careful which benchmark you hold yourself to. A 95% retention rate is realistic for associations where membership is compulsory to practise a trade or profession — the credential does the heavy lifting. For voluntary associations, where members can walk away and still do their job, the honest benchmarks are lower: the sector median sits around 84%, anything above 85% is strong, and 90%+ is genuinely excellent. Measure yourself against the right number for your type of organisation, not the one that flatters you.
We know this because we do it. Our secretariat team at Association Executive Services is currently assisting over 20 association clients with a combined membership base of 16,000 members — delivering renewal notices across 18 different membership platforms. We've seen what lifts retention and what quietly erodes it, on every system in the market.
A renewal sent as a billing exercise leaves members on the table. Treat the letter as what it is — your single best annual case for why membership is worth it.
If you need help growing and retaining your membership, talk to us at Association Executive Services Association Executive Services. Our team are among the most experienced membership professionals in Australia, with over 30 years in the NFP and association sector.
If your association is thinking about a rebrand because the colours look dated or a Board member doesn't like the typeface, stop. That's not the question worth asking. The real question is harder: does your organisation still represent the sector it claims to lead?
A website project is a governance decision with a technology component, not the other way round. The associations that get it right are the ones that invest in discovery, requirements, and contract scrutiny before a single pixel is designed. The ones that get it wrong skip straight to the demo, fall for the referral, and find out about ownership, integration, and total cost when it is too late to do anything but pay.
A Returning Officer is an independent individual appointed to oversee the election of Board Directors and ensure the process is conducted fairly, transparently and in accordance with the association's Constitution, By-Laws and any Board-approved election procedures.
How we help membership based, not-for-profit associations now and into the future.
