Acronym

Ben, my take is that this is a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" conversation. In any organization in which membership is central to both purpose and business model, membership is going to be everyone's job. This is probably just as true for a gym or club, as it is for an association, and is made manifest mostly at the level of service.

On the other hand, there is a strategic perspective to the work of membership that must come from somewhere, and that is the role of the membership professional. That strategic point of view should be based on an interdisciplinary approach involving all of the fields you mention, plus many others. In this regard, I don't agree with your assertion that "there are very few bodies of knowledge that are directly transferable from other sectors." Beyond customer service, marketing and sales, there is significant know-how available on community building and grassroots organizing, social network analysis, self-organizing/complex adaptive systems and biomimicry, leadership, experience and business model innovation, knowledge creation/sharing and learning organizations, just to mention a few areas. All of these disciplines relate to the work of the membership professional, and it is incumbent upon you and your colleagues to investigate what they have to teach you.

To be honest, I'm skeptical that an association specifically for membership professionals will be a catalyst for building a more robust body of knowledge in this area of our work. Such an organization could just as easily become an advocate for only certain ways of performing the membership function, the de facto enforcer of a professional orthodoxy that proscribes creativity and innovation.

Instead, I would suggest building an informal membership learning community that can steward the kind of inquiry and discourse in which you're interested. The first issue I would raise with such a group is whether the fairly loose definition of association membership, i.e., anyone who pays dues is a member, is still relevant today. For me, this is an open question, the answers to which could well redefine the role of the membership professional for many years to come.

You raise an interesting question, and Jeff brings some thought-provoking feedback regarding community building and grassroots organizing in relationship to "doing membership."

Speaking as a former association professional, membership seemed most associated with customer service (there didn't seem to be any special expertise required other than processing and managing memberships and filling orders). There was a bit of grassroots organizing, under the purview of the government relations department (the expertise here was acting as a liaison between members and Capitol Hill). There was always an emphasis on "getting more members" but it wasn't always clear why, except perhaps to stay in business (I know that sounds cynical).

Speaking as a member of various associations, including ASAE , I would welcome more active courting of members as integral participants in the community, and the feeling (which sometimes seems lacking) that the association really does exist to benefit my professional needs and that the interactions I have with said associations is more than just paying my membership dues.

What you are suggesting, Ben, is a re-education of the association professionals community--admirable, and a slow road. I agree with Jeff that building an informal membership learning community to discuss the expertise requirements--i.e., what does it mean to "do membership" and what are the skills/training required--might be the way to go.

I'd also include members in that discussion--maybe not at the beginning, but surely before any conclusions were acted upon. It would be interesting to hear people's thoughts on redefining the role of the membership professional--and who will provide that kind of training, and who are suitable candidates for the job.

Great post, Ben!

I think part of the difficulty you're facing stems from the fact that the membership department's responsibilities in any given association can vary wildly depending on the association's structure. In an organization with strong centralized marketing, the membership department will probably do less hands-on marketing work, for instance. That makes it hard for membership professionals to build conversations about everything they do for their associations.

Building on what Jeff has already said, I think that while enhancing the individual member's overall experience is every staff person's job, enhancing the experience of the overall membership (through marketing, grassroots engagement, social networking, etc.) is the job of the membership department.

By having members first in mind, the membership department can contribute to strategic discussions about all other aspects of association operations to ensure that they help to build that overall membership experience. Should other departments have members first in mind, too? Sure. But they won't always, and they won't always have the firsthand knowledge of the members that the membership department has.

I agree with some of the comments, especially Lisa's "enhancing the experience of the overall membership (through marketing, grassroots engagement, social networking, etc.) is the job of the membership department." Also, her point about "the membership department's responsibilities in any given association can vary wildly depending on the association's structure."

I believe one of the points Ben is raising is, do we need to formalize "Membership Training" in order to bring new, qualified individuals into membership positions, while at the same time legitimizing the profession to the Association world?

You can't get a degree in Membership. You can't be a certified Membership professional. Is there a benefit to membership professionals, as well as the association world, in working towards changing that? I believe there is.

I can see many parts from different disciplines working their way into such a curriculum: marketing, human resources, customer service, sales, grassroots, etc. But the new question becomes, who is responsible for the ultimate creation of such a thing?

It sounds like others believe it should be an informal learning community. I agree that this would help to a degree, but still may fall short of legitimizing "Membership." We may need ASAE, a progressive university, or perhaps a brand new association/organization to step up to fill this void.

"Membership is everyone's job" should be interpreted as "everyone should create value for members."

That is the true intent of the statement, which too often gets lost in semantic battles.

I think the development field is ripe with relevant content for membership efforts: cultivation, relationship-building, constituent relations, loyalty, etc.

Lots of interesting comments here...good discussion. My personal view is that we can best prepare membership development professionals for their future leadership roles with an interdisciplinary learning approach similar to the one I describe in the blog post at the following URL

http://tinyurl.com/2dhc3l

While it is unlikely we will be able to develop a formal academic program, I think we could create something collaboratively on an open source basis with interested contributors.

Wow, already seven comments. A lot to reply to:

@ Jeff: I actually re-wrote the "there are very few bodies of knowledge that are directly transferable from other sectors" sentence about three times before coming up with that one. I decided to leave out "en masse" but in hindsight, I think I should have left it in. As you wrote, there are multiple areas from which membership pros can draw useful information, but they are scattered across several disciplines. For the average membership pro, it's just not simple enough to get to. I have come around to be a supporter EMSAL (http://tinyurl.com/2dhc3l) and I would advocate that the re-education tract developed for the next generation of membership pros should be rolled into it.

@ Joanne: Yes, I think that would be a slow process, too. It would also be difficult, since it could only be judged successful when the membership pros begin producing at a higher level.

@ Matt: Isn't it ironic that there's a membership association for everything except for membership professionals?

@ David: Yes, you hit the nail on the head!

@ Jeffery: That looks like the beginning of a content outline.

Ben, you're right, the knowledge bases to which I refer are dispersed, sometimes disconnected from one another and not "gathered" together in ways that would place them at the center of the association radar screen. So, I think there is an opportunity here for those of us who care about this issue to create some new and totally cool stuff!

Ben, great post. I'll bet you get that a lot!

I think one problem is that often the role of the membership dept in a professional society can be quite different from that of a trade. So, there isn't even a clear understanding in the industry of what makes a membership professional unique.

In either case, I believe that all associations need a point person on value and I believe that membership professionals are naturally positioned to take that role. Ideally, a membership professional is the defender of and advocate for the organization's value proposition. Being a membership professional is about knowing your members and being the internal evangelist. It is also about being a resource for the entire organization and utilizing the knowledge you posses about the membership to help others in the organization succeed.

The for profit sector has Customer Relationship professionals and account executives to to do this and I believe this is an area we can look to for inspiration. Try looking up Customer Relationship positions on Monster or another job board. I think you will be surprised by what you see. In many cases, these job descriptions could describe that of a membership director. Yet the for profit world comes with stock options.

This issue will be a major focus of the Membership Section Council next year. It was clear from our last meeting, that there is great interest and passion for this issue.

Thanks for getting the conversation started.

Membership responsibilities are vast and all encompassing. What I handle for a member on Tuesday is different than what I am responding to on Wednesday. To try and place "membership roles" into one bucket is not possible. I agree membership is the responsibility of all, however, the membership department definitely has roles that are more specific and defined (managing affinity programs, recruitment and retention, etc.) I've found success comes through participation. If we can get members involved in anything that is important to them, attending the show, attending Capitol Hill meetings, participating in an affinity program (or two), then we have a successful member. If they do not participate, then they will not understand the value of the organization. Membership professionals need help from ASAE with a study group and creative steps regarding member participation. I look forward to what ASAE will bring to the table!

I had a boss once who used a variation on "Membership is everyone's job." He was fond of saying "Membership is everything and everything is membership," and I think that comes nearer the truth.

My take is that there are a lot of skills necessary to most membership professionals' toolbags, primarily around the ability to set up and maintain systems for things like recruitment, retention, customer service, dues billing, database management, etc, etc, etc. While there's a real difference in structure between trades and professional societies, in most cases a person who understands the complex processes necessary to the one could probably figure out the other. As a person who has worked only with organization-based memberships, I know that, either way, you're dealing with one person at a time, particularly around recruitment and retention. So yes, I would agree that there is a tranferrable, or universal body of knowledge necessary to the membership professional.

Where the membership professional excels is in the ability to understand, synthesize and keep up with what the program professionals in the organization are doing. I've worked in membership in two associations, with very different focuses, and very complex and varied areas of expertise. In order to talk creditably with members and prospective members about the association's work, the membership professional has to be able to integrate the technical skills, apply them to the particular issues of his or her association, and maintain a fluency in the organization's work. Finally, a membership professional has to know the players, both inside and outside the organization, well enough to find the right person to convince a tough prospect to join (or renew). So membership is at once a technical, an ideological, and a social discipline.

I've heard of associations in which membership is a sub-department within finance & administration - essentially a unit that sends invoices and keeps records. But that model is less common today as the membership professional's responsibility and purview expand to meet the broader needs of the association.

So, is membership everyone's job? Sure. But just as the CEO has the broader view required to hold together the many facets, functions and departments of the association, the membership professional has to have the broader view required to put together all the different facets of membership required in today's associations. Membership is everything, and everything is membership.

Wow, this is a great conversation...I must join! (How's that for providing value to a member?). While I agree with some of the comments here about membership being "everyone's job", I would also clarify that by saying it is to support the service and value to an individual, not to the entire membership. As a membership professional for 8 years, I have finally discovered what it is that I am supposed to be doing, being strategic!

My current position allows me to focus on the daily operations of a membership department, but in addition, provides me a seat on the executive management team. As a senior level employee, I have the opportunity to work with the three other important departments: IT/Operations, Education, and Marketing/Communications. Together, we work as a team to ensure we are delivering upon our stated core values and mission.

This is something new for my organization, where membership was lumped in with marketing and communications. Where is the focus in that? Membership deserves its own spotlight, if you are in fact a membership driven organization. You have revenue, you have services and products, you have members and customers; you should have a say in how things are done.

I don't know that the EMSAL is the right answer (sorry, Jeff, someone has to disagree!)...I also finished a master's degree in organizational management. While it did not necessarily cover association management with any specificity, that's what I liked about it. In this program, I learned how to apply an outside view (corporate, government, etc.) to the association world.

Great conversation! Here's my two cents...

The various structures of membership departments indeed appears to make membership a difficult specialty to define, however, when you take a step back, I think that it is more about how we look at the process than how we define job duties.

Essentially, I believe, at it's core, membership is the same. Membership is the truest filter for information between the membership and the staff. The difference among professionals is not in what we do task-wise but instead in how each association assigns importance and/or utilizes the information that comes out of that filter.

For example, some organizations may relegate membership to simply an administrative function and they may only absorb a very superficial amount of knowledge (how members want their dues processed, response times to questions, etc.). However, others mine that membership information deeply - surveys, focus groups, exit survey's, one-on-one interaction - and rely on it to provide the best guidance for decisions made across the board - both small-scale (how do service customer's phone calls? when do we bill dues?) and long-term (how should the association be planning for the next 20 years?).

Therefore, whether taking phone calls as a CR agent or putting together sophisticated retention reports, the job function is very similar - to know my members better than anyone else, to anticipate their needs, to synthesize the data that I've received (whether anecdotal or statistical) and to report my findings. What was different about each situation, and was confined by my job description, was the amount of information the association wanted to know and the capacity of that knowledge to reverberate up "the ladder."

Of course, we know that associations who put membership towards the top of their staff structure and who are driven by membership data are often the more successful, but it astonishes me how many don't try to copy this example, leaving a wealth of valuable information on the table. So, as much as I'm supportive of the concept of additional education for membership professionals, I believe that we need to simultaneously seek to increase awareness with association CEOs/EDs about the important place that membership should hold within their organizations.