Bridging the Leadership/Membership

Bridging the Leadership/Membership

GAP

eBook from Access Development©

Bridging the Leadership/Membership Gap

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Your Members Are Speaking... Are you Listening? A nationwide study showing how well member-based organizations are meeting the needs of their members. As a decision maker at a membership-based organization, are you confident that you know your members and their needs? Chances are, you and your members may disagree. When it comes to building a successful membership organization, leaders must be focused on gaining a true understanding of their members’ wants, needs, and expectations. Without that understanding, you’ll make critical decisions based on intuition, assumptions and educated guesses. Member engagement and satisfaction depends upon meeting the expectations of your constituents. Multiple factors contribute to a members’ expectations. Some of those


factors you control, such as your marketing collateral, communication, customer service, benefits, etc. But factors outside your control also play an important role in setting their expectations. They include the changing demographics of your member base and the competitive forces from similar organizations. Additionally, your members are demanding a better member experience, similar to the quality of service they’ve come to expect from the likes of Amazon® or Apple®. It all combines to reveal a membership population that has high expectations. They are looking more critically at your organization’s overall value proposition, and when a member’s expectations aren’t met, they disengage and churn away.

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At Access, we frequently consult with clients and prospective clients who are seeking to boost member engagement and retention. In the course of those interactions we see a surprising level of misalignment between organizational leaders and their members. Frequently, that misalignment is due to a lack of understanding of what today’s members really want. In many cases, membership professionals have never asked members what they need or want, nor have they asked what types of services and benefits members expect. Some leaders rely on guesswork or assumptions in identifying their members’ needs, and others simply ignore member feedback altogether. We see this phenomenon far too often. As such, we believe there was enough evidence to warrant further research on the matter of leader/member misalignment. We wanted to know if our observations are limited to our unique role as a solution for lackluster member engagement, or if the phenomenon we see reflects a wider, more systemic issue among all membership/ constituent based organizations.

About the Study Access has ongoing relationships with thousands of organizations nationwide, along with millions of rank and file members. Consequently, we are uniquely positioned to conduct a simultaneous attitudinal study of both leaders and their members. Some of the groups we surveyed are clients, but most were not. Our methods relied upon surveys and interviews to help us gather the necessary data. Respondents were from trade and employee associations, unions, non-profit and higher education alumni organizations. Of the 4,000+ responses we received, 53% were leaders, 47% were members. Overall, our margin of error is a respectable ±2.8%. The results of our study were prepared to help us better serve our clients, and deliver rigorous data to help them better engage their members. And like other studies we’ve published, we are willing to share the results of this new study with all those who have a vested interest in growing their own membership organization.

“Ignoring a lack of alignment between leaders and their members will only perpetuate the ongoing issues of member disengagement.”


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Key Result #1: Among all respondents, a 27% gap in perception exists between leaders and members. As a measure of member satisfaction and engagement, we asked leaders of membership groups to rate how well their organizations understood the needs and wants of their members. We similarly asked members to rate how well their organization understood their needs:

Among all survey respondents, the study identified a 27% gap between how leaders rate their organization’s understanding of their members’ needs, and how members rate the organization’s understanding of their needs.

8.0

This gap identifies a common issue found among many member-based organizations, as many leaders appear to overestimate how well their organization is meeting the needs of their members.

7.5

This misalignment can cause members to disengage and go away.

How Well Does Your Membership Organization Meet the Needs of Members?

7.0 6.5

7.5 27% Gap in Understanding

6.0 5.5

5.9

N=1,146

Leaders rated their understanding of their members 27% higher than members. This gap indicates that many leaders overestimate how well their organization understands their members.

While many organizations survey their members with varying frequency, those that survey members regularly will often fail to connect the dots between their findings and what they ultimately do with the data. Many have no processes in place to capture member data and implement policies or programs based on that data. Of greater concern, many organizations fail to survey their members at all. These organizations are at greater risk of experiencing the impact of the misalignment between organization and members.

“This gap identifies a common issue found among many memberbased organizations, as many leaders appear to overestimate how well their organization is meeting the needs of their members.”


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Key Result #2: When it comes to member benefits, a gap exists between what members want and what organizations choose to offer. In a perfect world, leaders would know the types of benefits that most influence their members, and members would love the benefits they receive. But too often leaders make assumptions about the popularity of their benefits, or neglect to seek out member feedback to make adjustments to their suite of benefits. Without reliable and rigorous data, the gap between leaders and their members will grow larger. To study this issue further, we asked organizational leaders to rate the types of benefits they offer, according to the influence each benefit has on member acquisition and retention. We also asked members to rate their benefits for their influence on their decision to remain a member. Because the diversity of member benefits is so vast across all types of membership groups, it’s challenging for us to get an apples-to-apples comparison of member benefits for our purposes here. To allow us to make a simple comparison, we identified the most common benefits being offered by membership groups, and arranged them into five basic categories:


“Too often leaders make assumptions about the popularity of their benefits, or neglect to seek out member feedback to make adjustments to their suite of benefits.” 1. Career/Professional benefits: (networking, certification, training/continuing education, trade shows, career services, etc.) 2. Social/Cause Related benefits: (cause advocacy, events, galas, mixers, access to influential people, etc.) 3. Philanthropic/Altruistic benefits: (giving back, fulfilling a sense of altruism or connection to something important, making a difference, helping the community) 4. Monetary/Economic benefits: (membersonly discounts at popular retailers, local restaurants, theme parks, travel packages, etc., as well as health/life/auto/home insurance, other financial products, etc.) 5. Other benefits: (benefits not listed, but unique to the organization)

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When looking at raw numbers, we see the most popular benefits below (with leaders’ ratings listed in dark blue, members’ ratings listed in light blue) and an average rating of both leaders and members in gray:

Most Popular Benefits Leaders

Members

Avg

Career/Professional Benefits Monetary/Financial Benefits Social/Cause Related Benefits Other Benefits (benefits not listed, but unique to your organization) Philanthropic Benefits n=1,113

On average, members and leaders agree that Career/Professional benefits are the most influential on member engagement and retention.

Gap Analysis of Benefit Ratings Above we compare ratings of the most influential benefits as rated by Leaders and Members. By doing a gap analysis, an interesting story emerges: Please rate the type (category) of benefits that have the greatest influence on your membership

Leaders rating this benefit as having the most influence

CATEGORY OF MEMBER BENEFIT

% OF LEADERS

GAP

% OF MEMBERS

Monetary/Economic

60%

5%

65%

Career/Professional benefits

69%

-3%

66%

Other benefits

57%

-3%

54%

Philanthropic/Altruistic benefits

54%

-4%

50%

Social/Cause Related benefits

64%

-12%

52%

Members rating this benefit as having the most influence

n=1,109

The only benefit category that members rated higher than leaders, are benefits in the monetary/ economic category. For all other benefit categories, leaders assume those benefits are more popular than what members report.


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As members assess all of their benefits, the study reveals a consistent and strong appeal of Monetary/Financial benefits. Members seem to want benefits that deliver compelling value to their pocketbooks. But it may also be as simple as wanting a benefit that helps them offset the cost of membership. These benefits include everyday discounts at popular retailers, local restaurants, auto services, shopping, and also theme parks, hotels, car rentals etc. Discounts on life and AD&D insurance, banking and other financial products are also included, but historically less compelling. Leaders and members appear to be in sync when it comes to the popularity of Career/ Professional benefits, such as opportunities for networking, obtaining certifications, training/continuing education, trade shows, career services, etc. Regardless of the type of membership organization, whether it be individual, trade or professional association, or a combination of individual and company-based organizations, when offered in a suite of benefits, career and professional benefits appear to have the strongest, overall appeal to members. Philanthropic/Altruistic benefits, include opportunities to give back, stay connected, help the community or otherwise fulfill a sense of altruism. These benefits appear to be least engaging with members. While clearly there is value in philanthropy, organizations that encourage members to act altruistically may erroneously assume that this benefit is


sufficient to drive member engagement and retention. This study suggests that appealing to a members’ sense of philanthropy and altruism has a lower impact overall on member engagement and retention, which is even lower than predicted by membership professionals. Social/Cause Related benefits appear to have the biggest negative gap. Leaders believe these benefits are of greatest value to members, while members are less enthusiastic about their overall value. This isn’t to say that these benefits don’t have value. For some groups, social and cause-related programs are their primary reason for existence. But overall, the study indicates that leaders overvalue the appeal of these programs, and could be a reason for member attrition.

Identifying Potential Data Bias We recognize a potential conflict that exists with this data set, given that Access is a provider of Monetary/Financial benefits. We wanted to further validate the results of this survey and diminish the influence of Access clients on the outcome of these results. To accomplish that, we controlled for responses from those with and without the Access benefit. We can confirm that members with the Access benefit did not unduly influence this result. All member respondents rated Monetary/Financial benefits higher than did the membership professionals, regardless of their affiliation with Access.

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Key Result #3: As the perceived quality of member benefits decreases, the larger the gap grows between leaders and their members. We were interested in isolating a set of responses from one survey question (the quality of benefits), and identifying any correlations that exist between another survey question (the rating of understanding). In this case, we isolated responses to how respondents rate the quality of the organization’s benefits. Those that rate their organization as having extraordinary value were placed in one “bucket,” as well as those who rate their benefits as good, little or poor value, etc. Each was placed in a separate bucket.

When we look at those responses in each respective bucket, we wanted to see if the quality of member benefits had a correlating impact on how members and leaders rated their organization’s understanding of their needs. Would we find a pattern showing that, as the quality of benefits decreases, do any gaps appear with how leaders assess their understanding of members’ needs, and how their members perceive how well the organization understands their needs?

What we found was indeed an increasing gap between members and professionals, as the quality of benefits decreases:

Leaders/Member Rate - Organization’s Members Understanding UNDERSTANDING RATING

When Controlling for the Quality of Benefits

Leaders Rate the Organization’s Understanding of Members Members Rate the Organization’s Understanding of Members

When Respondents Rate Benefits as Having Extraordinary Value

When Respondents Rate Benefits as Good Value

When Respondents Rate Benefits as Having a Little Value

GAP 104% When Respondents Rate Benefits as Having Poor Value

n=1,089

When the benefits are rated high by both leaders and members, the gap in understanding between leaders is low. But as the quality of benefits decreases, the gap grows bigger.


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When members and leaders agree that the value of member benefits has extraordinary value, the gap between leaders and members is low…less than 1%. But when the perceived value of benefits diminishes, the greater the gap grows between leaders and their members.

However, as the perception of the quality of benefits diminishes, organizations tend to misjudge how well they are meeting the needs of their members. When the benefits are rated as poor, the gap grows to 104.1% between leaders and their members.

In other words, when member benefits are very good, members and leaders report they are in sync with each other, and both are happy.

Our experience in interacting with these types of organizations would indicate that many leaders are simply wishing against hope that their member benefits are good enough to keep members engaged and renewing. Other leaders appear to be turning their heads to the problem, hoping their members won’t notice how weak their benefits truly are.

“Some leaders are simply wishing their member benefits are good enough to keep members engaged and renewing. Other leaders appear to be hoping members won’t notice how weak their benefits truly are.”

Overall, this study suggests that many leaders lack insight into the critical importance of offering compelling and valuable member benefits. Members are demanding more and better benefits, and only those organizations who respond to that demand will be able to grow.

Summary: Closing the Gap The study confirms our anecdotal observations about a gap between leaders and their members. Many leaders simply assume they are meeting their members’ needs, when in fact the data suggests otherwise. The study also confirms a strong correlation between benefits and member engagement. We see a mandate coming from members who tell their organizations they need to “pick up their game,” when it comes to the suite of benefits they are offered. Members demand more because they are being offered more from other sources.

The Competition for Members Leaders can’t ignore the skyrocketing increase in competition for their members’ attention and loyalty. Members (like all consumers) see on average 5,000+ advertisements/brand exposures per day. Of


those, 362 will be attempts to engage (using some form of a call-to-action). Each day, consumers respond to 12 of those 362 attempts to engage. With such a concentration of marketing effort focused on your members, each year the average consumer is a member of 29 loyalty programs. Vying for the attention of your members are countless other groups and organizations, plus loyalty clubs from grocery stores, airlines, drugstores, credit cards, retailers, restaurants, etc., all of which consume the time, energy and resources of your members. That’s why the benefits you offer must provide compelling value. Value attracts attention. Value leads to engagement. Now more than ever, offering your members meaningful value is the critical step to driving engagement.

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As consumers, we subconsciously calculate the value of any transaction, whether it’s for soap, a car, frequent flyer program, or an alumni organization. In the absence of value, the cost of affiliation eventually becomes the most important factor. In other words your members will be resistant to the costs associated with engagement if you neglect or ignore your value proposition. Too often, organizations under-deliver on the promise of member benefits, when they should be over-delivering on their benefits in order to keep members happy and engaged over time. That’s why the average duration of any membership lasts less than five years. Without a focus on lifetime engagement, you will be constantly working to stem the steady tide of member attrition.

How do you close the member engagement gap? Step 1: Start by asking bold and probing questions of your members. • What is your members’ opinion of your organization? Do you know? If not, ask. Find out what they like and don’t like. • Are your members proud of their connection with your organization? Why or why not? • What is your organization’s NPS score? If you haven’t asked yet, establish a benchmark by asking the Net Promotor Score question: “How likely is it that you would recommend (your organization) to a colleague or friend?” • Which existing benefits, programs and activities do your members value most? If you were to stop offering a benefit, what would be the impact on member engagement and satisfaction?


• Who are your super members or evangelists? Do you know who is most engaged? Do you know why they are so engaged? The answers to these questions will help you learn more about what members expect and want from your organization. Step 2: Conduct your own gap analysis by asking parallel questions from this study. Identify any misalignment between your members and the organization, and address them head-on. This can be a difficult process initially, as you must be willing to look critically at all your programs, projects, events, and benefits. Once you’ve assessed each one for its effectiveness, engagement, popularity and ROI, make adjustments accordingly. Be willing to modify, expand or cancel programs…even pet projects. There should be no sacred cows. Step 3: Look to successful organizations and learn from them. What do successful organizations have in common? Here are the Top 10 Best Practices we’ve compiled from the hundreds of successful member organizations we work with: 1. Focus on Creating Life-Long Members. Creating a life-long relationship with a member is more important than any shortterm revenue a membership generates. The initial membership transaction is just the starting point, not the primary objective. 2. Minimizing Member Dissatisfaction Is Not Enough. YOU MUST CREATE MEMBER EVANGELISTS. It’s no longer enough just to keep members from complaining. Instead, you must be proactive in converting members into evangelists for your organization/association. This requires a change of culture, and may be your biggest organizational hurdle. Underpaid staff sometimes focus on minimizing interactions with members, rather than viewing each interaction as an opportunity to build member loyalty. Train staff about delighting members, not just meeting their minimum requests.

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3. Align Your Member Benefits with Their Value Expectations. Successful organizations spend considerable time and resources evolving their benefits, focusing on relevance, immediate value, and ease of use. Floundering organizations ignore or neglect the member/benefit alignment, or simply skip this step altogether, and rush to build an acquisition program before their benefits are fully in place. When members recognize that the value of membership exceeds the cost, they will grow less sensitive to the cost of membership, and become increasingly loyal as a result. 4. Simplify Your Member Enrollment Experience. Successful organizations make it easy for members to join and stay a member, even if it requires a complex process behind the scenes. Simplify the UX/UI enrollment process and remove all barriers to joining. 5. Deliver a Memorable and Simple Onboarding Process. Closely related to the member-enrollment experience, onboarding is crucial to long-term member retention. When a member senses your efforts are to build a lasting relationship at the outset, and not just execute a business transaction, it changes the tone of the entire relationship. 6. Use the Value of Your Benefits to Generate Referrals. Some leaders mistakenly believe they can’t afford good member benefits. And yet, the payoff for compelling benefits is incredible, not only in terms of member retention, but for referrals as well. With good benefits, members become a source of referrals, and recommend membership to their friends, colleagues and other qualified associates. Increased referrals lower your costs of acquisition. 7. Identify your “ideal member” and work hard to be worthy of him/her. Be constantly innovating and evolving


your programs and benefits in ways that both retain your long-time members and attract new ones. Today’s ideal member will probably not look like tomorrow’s ideal member. Your ideal future member will likely have even higher expectations of your organization, and demand more value. Plan for that reality. 8. Pay Attention to your Acquisition Rates, as They Measure the Value of your Benefits. A tell-tale red flag that your benefits are tired, ho-hum or lack value, is a decline in member acquisition, even though retention may remain high. 9. Don’t Ignore the Huge Trail of Valuable Data Members Leave Behind. By collecting, organizing and analyzing that data, your organization can build stronger relationships with members, and identify important trends that can help you develop new benefits and improve retention. Survey your members often, and use that data to develop new strategies for acquisition, retention, and selecting new benefits. Small tests on smaller audiences can lead to scalable solutions. Develop sustainable strategies, and be constantly evolving and innovating. But remember, developing a long-term focused membership organization will require less sprints and more marathons. Always keep a long view. 10. Don’t Ignore Your Churn Rate. Churn (the rate at which members lapse or choose not to renew) is the lagging indicator of member dissatisfaction and even disaffection. When members lapse, the rate at which they stop renewing should be monitored frequently. However, by surveying members regularly it can help anticipate retention issues. If you use an auto-renew system, look for a spike in members turning off their auto-renew. It’s an indicator that members are seeing less value in your benefits.

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Addendum: Alumni Organizations As a result of ongoing research and related articles we publish on our blog, we’ve developed a substantial following of higher education alumni professionals. As such, when conducting this “Gap Analysis” we were able to isolate responses from leaders who serve in higher education alumni organizations. We were careful to craft our questions so

respondents from all alumni organizations could participate, not just the 22% of alumni relations programs who have a dues paying program. We wanted to include responses from as many qualified alumni relations professionals as possible, to get a representative sampling of the majority of institutions of higher education.

The Gap in Understanding When compared to leaders from all types of constituent/member-based organizations, the results provide some interesting insights into alumni relations professionals. For reasons we will discuss later, alumni relations professionals rate their understanding of their constituents a whopping 52% lower than their counterparts from all other types of organizations. Among all types of membership groups, alumni relations rate themselves the lowest of all. On a scale of 1-10, (10=Extremely well) how well does your organization understand the needs of members?

OVERALL

Alumni Organizations

7.49

4.92

Leaders rating of how well their organization understands their constituents

52% Difference When we asked alumni professionals to estimate how the majority of their alumni would rate the value of the benefits they offer, the survey reveals a similar significant gap between all respondents and those affiliated with alumni organizations.

In your estimation, how would the majority of your constituents rate the value of the benefits you offer? Poor Value

A Little Value

Good Value

Extraordinary Value

Weighted Average

NON-Alumni professionals

2.9%

23.4%

59.9%

13.8%

3.56

Alumni professionals

10.9%

43.8%

42.5%

2.7%

2.29

GAP*

56%

In every category, alumni professionals rate their benefits as having inadequate value. Only 2.7% of alumni professionals rate their benefits as having extraordinary value, whereas among all other organizations, nearly 14% rate their benefits as having the highest value. Overall, the gap between all other member/constituent based organizations, and alumni organizations, is 56% when we look at the weighted average.


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Minding the Gap What’s the reason for such a wide gap? Why are alumni relations professionals so negative? Here are a few stats, according to a recent VAESE study: • 87% of alumni relations professionals report they “do a poor job,” or “need to do more” to attract and engage young alumni. • 74% of alumni relations professionals are concerned about being under-staffed. • 68% of alumni relations professionals report they are concerned about a lack of alumni engagement. • 64% of alumni organizations have not seen an increase in their office staff in the past 5 years, while 26% have seen a decrease in their staff. (source: VAESE Alumni Relations Benchmarking Study)

To make matters worse, alumni offices nationwide are struggling to remain relevant. The digital age has stripped many such organizations of their value proposition, as they are no longer the exclusive providers of content, communication and connectivity. The days are long gone when alumni relations professionals spent their time planning reunions/events, hawking credit cards and/or printed alumni directories. Now social media and digital communication have replaced much of what alumni relations officers once focused on. The result is that most alumni offices have been forced to reinvent themselves. Those that haven’t struggle to attract and engage their alumni. Despite having little to offer alumni in the way of valuable benefits, many institutions seem to have overlooked the fact that alumni expect more than a one-sided relationship


where alumni do all the giving, and the institution does all the taking. Alumni want something in return for maintaining an ongoing relationship with their alma mater. Instead of offering value and benefits that can attract and engage alumni, some institutions have simply doubled down on their gift solicitations. Many advancement leaders still believe alumni should feel “honored” to give back to their school. Still others, misguidedly believe a gift solicitation is an effective substitute for cultivating alumni relationships – which is why we’ve reached a state of aggressive over-solicitation of alumni. The average institution now solicits first-year graduates 2.7 times within the first year after graduation; that’s just as these young alumni are settling in to the first job of their career… before they have paid off student loans or established a stable financial foothold. Call it overconfidence. Call it arrogance. Either way, institutions need to change, as alumni are expressing their demands for value and reciprocity by quitting their relationship with their alma mater. The number of alumni who give will continue to plummet, and more and more alumni will demand to be put on the “do not call” and “do not solicit” list.

Alumni Professionals’ Priorities The unique problems facing alumni relations professionals are reflected in the data we’ve gathered. When compared to our entire data set, the graph below illustrates the differences in priorities and goals between alumni organizations and all other membership based organizations.

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What is Your Organization’s Top Goal(s) for the next 12-18 months? (Select up to 2)

Increasing member engagement Increasing member acquisition/retention rates Increasing bottom line revenue Increasing volunteer participation Increasing staff size Increasing our voice as an advocate for our constituents/members Increasing our diversity as an organization Other (please specify) Alumni

Overall

Boosting engagement is the highest priority for all member-based organizations, alumni included. For other organizations (many of which are trade associations and unions), their second highest priority involves advocacy on behalf of their constituents/members. Now I’m not encouraging alumni organizations focus more time on cause advocacy, but clearly these organizations have an external focus on serving their constituency, and providing real value to their members. In contrast, many alumni organizations place a high priority on generating revenue. Either on acquiring/retaining more paying members, or boosting bottom line revenue. Increasingly, advancement executives give the alumni office the responsibility for managing the top-of-funnel fundraising activities, like the annual fund. This is often at the expense of other programs meant to attract and engage alumni. Could this increasing focus on fundraising be a result of the fact that 65% of institutions


have integrated or are working toward integration of their alumni relations offices within the fundraising/development operation? As discussed in previous articles, the evidence suggests that at many institutions, the effect of assimilation has resulted in the alumni relations functions becoming subordinate to the fundraising/development operation. The problems arise when fundraising objectives supersede alumni engagement objectives. When alumni perceive that giving money is the only acceptable means of supporting their alma mater, the result is non-giving alumni feel as though they are second class citizens. This shift in focus has seen institutions turn alumni officers into quasi-fundraisers, ignoring the primary function of cultivating alumni for lifelong giving. The evidence is seen in looking at how alumni relations professionals prioritize their time, as compared to all other constituent based organizations.

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To start with, let’s see how non-alumni professionals prioritize their time, with the data from these respondents:

Non-Alumni Professionals

Please rate your organization’s priorities for the following objectives: Priority

Most critical priority

Secondary priority

Important but not a high priority

Not our priority

1

Advocating more effectively on behalf of our organization’s members/mission

57.76%

24.27%

15.82%

3.69%

2

Delivering first-rate member service

50.00%

31.64%

15.43%

4.01%

3

Executing effective communications with members

48.14%

33.75%

15.48%

3.10%

4

Building better solutions to solicit/retain members

41.76%

34.51%

19.26%

5.08%

5

Developing, managing and delivering compelling member benefits

39.72%

35.12%

21.01%

5.83%

6

Developing better relationships with key constituents & board members

39.60%

32.51%

21.88%

6.93%

7

Developing an organizational “brand” that conveys excellence/expertise

35.44%

32.82%

24.35%

8.17%

8

Improving how we plan, organize and measure key outcomes/objectives

34.62%

34.31%

26.74%

5.26%

9

Enhancing the tools and training for staff to do their job well

30.51%

33.28%

30.35%

7.09%

10

Boosting our fundraising

24.30%

21.52%

30.96%

25.08%

Now let’s look how alumni relations professionals prioritize their efforts:

Alumni Relations Professionals Please rate your organization’s priorities for the following objectives: Priority

Most critical priority

Secondary priority

Important but not a high priority

Not our priority

1

Developing better relationships with key constituents & board members

50.68%

30.14%

17.81%

1.37%

2

Boosting our fundraising

50.68%

23.29%

20.55%

6.85%

3

Executing effective communications with members

50.00%

36.11%

13.89%

0.00%

4

Building better solutions to solicit/retain members

49.32%

36.99%

13.70%

1.37%

5

Delivering first-rate member service

45.21%

39.73%

8.22%

6.85%

6

Improving how we plan, organize and measure key outcomes/objectives

40.28%

33.33%

25.00%

1.39%

7

Developing an organizational “brand” that conveys excellence/expertise

34.25%

39.73%

21.92%

5.48%

8

Developing, managing and delivering compelling alumni benefits

31.51%

32.88%

21.92%

13.70%

9

Advocating more effectively on behalf of our organization’s members/mission

26.39%

37.50%

22.22%

13.89%

10

Enhancing the tools and training for staff to do their job well

13.70%

31.51%

43.84%

10.96%


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For alumni organizations, three of the top five priorities relate to fundraising, not on cultivating alumni with compelling benefits and services. Instead, alumni organizations place a higher priority on improving how they measure key outcomes/objectives, and developing their organizational “brand,” rather than improving the value proposition of their organization.

Comparing Benefit Categories Across the board, alumni professionals acknowledge they struggle to deliver value in their benefits. When we look at the benefits that have the greatest influence on attracting, acquiring and retaining alumni, the following chart provides some interesting insights. Starting with non-alumni professionals, the top two highest rated benefit categories are Career/Professional benefits, and Monetary/Financial benefits.

Non-Alumni Professionals Please rate the type of benefit that has the greatest influence on attracting, acquiring and retaining your constituents/members? Rating as having great or some influence

Rating as having little or no influence

Weighted Average


67%

33%

2.8

Monetary/Financial benefits

63%

37%

2.6

Social/Cause Related benefits (advocacy, social events, galas, etc.)

58%

42%

2.5

Other benefits (benefits not listed, but unique to your organization)

56%

44%

2.4

Philanthropic (benefits giving back)

52%

48%

2.2

Category

Alumni Professionals Please rate the type of benefit that has the greatest influence on attracting, acquiring and retaining your constituents/members? Rating as having great or some influence

Rating as having little or no influence

Weighted Average


78%

14%

3.1

Philanthropic (benefits giving back)

75%

17%

2.9

Social/Cause Related benefits (events, galas, mixers, etc.)

71%

26%

2.7

Other benefits (benefits not listed, but unique to your organization such as alumni magazine, e-newsletters)

44%

23%

1.8

Monetary/Financial benefits

34%

52%

1.7

Category


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Alumni professionals rate career services as their most compelling benefit. No surprise. This is consistent with the vast majority of respondents, for all types of organizations we surveyed. This result also coincides with our findings in the VAESE study. But alumni professionals rate the second most influential benefit as a Philanthropic benefit, the “benefit of giving back,” of “paying back what the institution gave you.” Of the reasons behind the 52% gap in understanding between alumni professionals and alumni, the biggest reason (for the 52% GAP) appears to relate to this misplaced reliance on the philanthropic motivation of alumni to stay engaged with their alma matter.

“The biggest reason (for the 52% GAP) appears to relate to this misplaced reliance on the philanthropic motivation of alumni to stay engaged with their alma matter.”

Among all types of constituent based organizations, including non-profits, charitable, humanitarian and church organizations, our


research suggests that no other type of constituent based group, organization or association relies more heavily on philanthropic generosity than do higher education alumni organizations. This conclusion is not only based upon the findings of this study, but also includes our VAESE Alumni Relations Benchmarking survey. We asked alumni professionals to consider their overall suite of benefits, and rate the influence of all their benefits on motivating alumni to join, give or engage. A whopping 45% of institutions report they do not offer benefits, but rely instead on the “philanthropic generosity” of their alumni. (see Question 26, pp44 VAESE study) When we consider how all other constituent-based organizations engage their members with benefits (see key result #2), philanthropic benefits are rated the lowest overall for their influence on attracting and engaging their members/constituents. As stated previously, this study confirms that appealing to alumni’s sense of philanthropy and altruism does not have a lasting impact on driving engagement and retention. To keep alumni engaged and motivated, compelling benefits are the most powerful tool to keep them engaged over time.

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About Access® Development For over 30 years, Access has provided organizations, associations and companies with compelling member benefits, utilizing our exclusive, private network of merchant backed discounts and rewards. Featuring over 300,000 participating merchant locations, and over 500,000 lodging properties worldwide, these compelling discount offers can attract and engage constituents of all types, covering a broad demographic spectrum.

The Access merchant network is the largest collection of private, deep discounts in America, and is effectively leveraged by our clients to achieve business objectives such as: • Member benefit enhancements • Standalone loyalty programs • Revenue-generating membership clubs • Employee retention and reward programs

Using our popular My Deals Mobile® app, members show their phone at the point of sale to redeem discounts in virtually every retail neighborhood from coast to coast. Our members-only discounts deliver savings of up to 50% off at popular restaurants, retailers, big box stores, theme parks, auto service centers, hotels, recreation outlets and travel providers.

• Acquisition & retention incentives • Fundraisers for charitable organizations • Redemption alternatives for miles & points programs (i.e. “points-burn” solutions) • Targeted merchant recruitment services to organizations that need help securing specialized deals outside of our network

© 2018 Access Development®

This license permits remixing, repurposing and building upon this work, even for commercial purposes, providing “Leader/Member Gap Study by Access Development®” is clearly and prominently credited. Any new creation that references, or is derived, in whole or in part, from this work, must also be licensed using the identical terms, even if not intended for commercial use. All other for-profit use requests must contact: Leader/Member Gap Study Access Development, 1012 W. Beardsley Place, Salt Lake City, UT 84109 https://www.accessdevelopment.com/contact 801-656-1484


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