What Makes Impact, Impact

2019 marks Impact’s 13th year of business. It has been an exciting ride full of changes and growth. This year, we decided it was important to define what is unique about Impact. Talking over everything that is unique to Impact, our team narrowed it down to 3 defining factors.

1.  We love what we do, and it shows. Our team is passionate about supporting Associations and becoming partners in order to surpass goals and achieve milestones. As partners, we find great value in developing relationships with our Clients. We are real people with different personalities, skill-sets and strengths. We celebrate this diversity and believe in having FUN while providing top level professional services to our Clients. 

2. We specialize in small-medium sized Associations. We understand the unique challenges and benefits that align with these Organizations. While each Client is unique, we believe in sharing the strategies and successes we’ve experienced in the past rather than reinventing the wheel. Regardless of how long our Clients have been established or what phase they are in as an Organization, we believe they deserve the best customer service, support and resources.
   

3. We believe in transparency. We hold ourselves to extremely high standards when it comes to ethical business practice. From day one we are working hard to establish trust with our Clients. We often pick up the pieces from previous broken partnerships and this has given us the knowledge of how to do things right, right from the start. From our contracts to our invoices and everything in between, we respect our Clients too much to keep anything in the dark. 

Although logos, employees, and clients may have changed over the last 13 years, these 3 unique selling points never will. Happy 13 years of Impact!

Member Retention: Your Membership Webinar Review

Impact’s team member, Heather, recently watched a webinar on Member Retention by YourMembership. Heather reported back to the team with many creative ideas and suggestions that she learned from this webinar.  

The video mentioned that a member is going to decide whether they will renew in the first 3 months. This proves how crucial communication is when welcoming a member.  It is important to show the new member their importance to the association and inform them of all benefits and resources the membership includes. This increased communication, however, cannot stop after the initial welcome. It is crucial to maintain a consistent line of communication between the board and members. The members need to be reminded of why they chose to become a member in the first place. This can be as simple as sharing industry related news or updating them on changes within the board.  

At the end of the day, however, you are still going to lose some members. One option that YourMembership suggested is conducting an exit survey. This should include something positive such as, “What did you gain from being a member?” Questions like this can remind the member of the perks before exiting and could influence their decision. The exit survey should also include questions that give further insight into why members are leaving. Questions can include “Why do you not want to renew?”, “What would have made you want to renew?”, or “When did you decide not to renew?” Information like this can help the board understand what steps to take next.  

Next steps could include adding more benefits, implementing better communication, or recognizing when members make their decision. It is a lot easier to retain a member than to recruit a new one. Putting time an energy into your current members can show a large payoff.

https://www.yourmembership.com/resource-library/webinars/

Setting Professional Development Requirements

Here at Impact Services, we believe it is important to continue learning and growing. Because learning and development are so important to Impact’s mission, it is required that each member participate in 6 professional developments a year. These development opportunities can include skills a team member would like to work on developing, networking events, or a chance to develop a goal or project a client needs or wants.  

This has lead to our team experiencing forums, webinars, and more that have developed them into the hard-working professionals they are. After participating, team members must share with the team what was learned, what challenges or skills they still need to learn more about, and ideas or lessons learned that they feel other staff members could benefit from. 

Setting these requirements sets a culture of continuous education. It reminds everyone on the team that there is always more to be informed about and more room for improvement. The requirements ensure that our team is always increasing their value to our clients. It also provides an opportunity for Impact to take on new responsibilities within our company, because although we may not have experience in a subject, it does not mean we are not willing to learn and conquer it. 

Setting standards for professional development could be a great way to improve your company or association. It will provide new perspectives and open the mind of your team. Seeing things in a new light or learning more about something can only grow your organizations.

Client Spotlight: The Association for Collaborative Leadership

We are having so much fun sharing our clients with the world! This week we are directing our focus to The Association for Collaborative Leadership (ACL). This organization got its start in 1965 and has been going strong ever since. The foundation of the organization was to establish an organization for consortia to share ideas, resources, services, projects, and more. ACL’s vision is to, “Serve as the recognized authority on consortial leadership and collaboration in higher education, providing its members with access to specialized expertise, knowledge, and training so they can successfully develop, lead, and manage consortia or other higher education partnerships.” Over the years, ACL has worked to strengthen the networking opportunities and create more benefits for their members. 

Members are given many opportunities and advantages. ACL’s membership benefits include annual conferences, professional development. E-mail discussion lists, a guide for consortia, research bibliography, salary survey, and networking.  

Impact has been supporting ACL since 2017. Our team members, Jill and Heather, work hard to provide ACL with the best possible service. These two provide email management, financial support, run social media, and maintain membership communication. ACL also has an annual conference that Impact’s CEO/Event Specialist, Jodi Fisher, manages. This organization is a pleasure to work with and has grown into a strong partnership.

Impact’s Executive Administrators and Event Specialist for ACL.

Learn more about ACL

Fueling Member Involvement

It is easy for members of an association to feel as though they are just another face in the crowd. Connecting with members and involving them in decisions is the best way to provide most members with what they want out of the association. The following steps will provide you with a few quick ways to further engage members.

Start a discussion. Involve your members by asking questions whether it is about industry related subjects or what the members want to see with upcoming events, resources, etc. This is a great way to kick off conversation among members and open a line of communication between the board and members. This could be done through social media at an event or wherever it seems fit.

Keep members in the know. A newsletter might not be read by all, but it is the best way to keep members up to date and informed about the association. Once a month is ideal for a newsletter and be sure to include upcoming events and resources the members can utilize. This is what they will be looking for in the letter. A newsletter can also be a good way to show members what their dues and donations are going towards. Whether it is providing a scholarship for a student or providing research for a disease, members want to see the impact their money is making.

Emphasis Exclusivity. Show your members what they are getting out of their membership. This could be done by inviting members to an event or reiterating membership benefits. This will keep them involved and content as well as prevent them from discontinuing their membership. Providing things that they enjoy and do not want to miss out on, will keep them coming back for more.

Keeping these ideas in mind, can make a significant impact on membership involvement.