Professional membership associations face numerous administrative challenges when it comes to managing memberships, organising events and maintaining effective communication with their members. There’s usually a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to the administration of an association.
Thankfully, technology has drastically helped to cut down workloads and streamline processes, making associations more efficient, dynamic and responsive to their member’s needs.
Customer Relationship Management Tools
The cornerstone of any professional association is its membership base. Managing member’s information, renewals, and communication can quickly become overwhelming. CRMs can help to alleviate a lot of stress and will act as the digital backbone of a modern association.
These platforms offer a comprehensive solution to track, engage and grow your membership. CRMs can be accessed from anywhere digitally and will significantly cut back the amount of manpower needed for any one task.
Communication and Collaboration Software
There are a multitude of online platforms that feature instant messaging, file sharing, and video conferencing, all of which promote collaboration amongst association staff, members, and special interest groups. Most of these tools integrate with other software, making it easy to manage tasks and stay organised no matter what platform you usually use.
Surveys and Feedback
Listening to members is paramount to all associations – it is the association Board’s job to manage their member’s needs and expectations. Asking for feedback is an important step in development. An association’s membership is its key to its growth, which is why it’s so important to ensure that your association is serving its purpose, and what is being offered is specifically catered to meet your member’s needs. If this is done, then members are much more likely to stick around when it comes to renewal time.
Financial Management Software
Managing an association’s finances can be challenging, especially when dealing with membership fees, event income, and operating expenses. There are numerous online tools that can simplify financial processes by automating invoicing, expense tracking and reporting. They also provide insights into an association’s financial health, paving the way for the administration team and business manager to make sensible and informed decisions.
Resources
It’s difficult to manage a professional membership association of any scale, and it’s easy to bite off more than you can chew. Associations come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, and when it comes to their management, it’s fine to have to rely on others for help.
Cygnul offers bespoke administration services exclusively for not-for-profit organisations and membership associations. If you would like to find out more about what we do at Cygnul, contact us.