When you think of membership renewal strategies, you might think about the few months leading up to a member’s renewal date. But your members’ entire experience with your organization – not just the last 90 days – informs their decision to renew. From the moment they click the “join” button, your members are deciding if they’ll stick around, or if they’ll go.

Source: Your Membership by Community Brands

Sometimes associations get caught up in trying to gain new members that you actually forget about your current members. Having your members come back time and time again is a great way to boost your association, and even grow your membership.

Source: Your Membership by Community Brands

Diversity is an applaudable goal, but boards need to be driven to achieve equity so they can best achieve their mission-related goals, say non-profit leaders including Jennifer Jellen of the Fund for Public Education and David Hopkins of the Center for the Arts. Boards will have to change their recruitment practices, says BoardSource executive Jim Taylor, encouraging people to look far beyond their usual social circles.

Source: Jackson Hole News & Guide (Wyo.)

Gartner's Brian Kropp predicts 11 trends that HR leaders should pay attention to next year, such as a shift from prioritizing the employee experience to focusing on employee life experience and a worsening gender pay gap. Kropp also expects flexibility to focus more on time as opposed to location, lawsuits against employers regarding vaccination and companies to invest in "buying and renting talent."

Source: Human Resource Executive

I have banned the phrase “return to normal,” because right now is normal. Change is normal. Perhaps our current rate of acceleration is not – but change itself is normal. Today it’s normal that I don’t eat in restaurants or fly, and at some point it will be normal that I do those things again.

Source: Velvet Chainsaw Consulting

Feedback requires hard work and timeliness, and working remotely means additional changes are needed in terms of how leaders observe and critique. writes Art Petty, who offers 10 suggestions. "Since 'observed behaviors' are the foundation of quality feedback, we have to create more virtual opportunities via team meetings, briefings, ideation sessions, and other events to catch our team members in action" he writes.

Source: Art Petty

It can be easy for leaders to slip into micromanagement amid the year-end rush, but this approach can be damaging with remote workers. Instead of asking for constant updates, focus on showing trust and giving your team a sense of empowerment.

Source: Fast Company online

Doug Bowker had a long career in the private sector but pivoted to running a non-profit at age 63, which was a totally different experience. "Rebrand yourself rather than just saying 'well, I've always been successful doing things a certain way and I'm going to continue' because that will probably come back and bite you," he says.

Source: Business 2 Community

Is UX research worth your time and effort? Yes! Sandy Marsico of digital creative agency Sandstorm showed TEC 2020 attendees how making your association's website more user-friendly can result in increased conversions, reduced cart or site abandonment, and overall improved member engagement.

Source: Naylor Association Solutions

Times of crisis are difficult, but they also create opportunity for us to throw out old ways of doing things. The idea that innovation can only happen on a large scale through grand ideas that disrupt entire industries is a myth that stymies creativity.

Source: Naylor Association Solutions

This episode will help anyone who is new to strategic communication planning, and is a great refresher about best practices for creating a comprehensive marketing plan.

Listen on: Listen on Anchor.fm!

Video-meeting apps have grown up—now users need to, too. Roughly two-thirds of U.S. workers who have been working from home would prefer to continue working remotely as much as possible when pandemic restrictions lift, according to a recent Gallup poll. So it’s time to get serious about video meetings. No more dogs and cats; no more avatar stand-ins. It’s time to enter a remote meeting as if it were a conference room.

Source: The Wall Street Journal