A little over a week ago we attended Non-Dues-A-Palooza in Nashville, TN. We learned from forward thinking association executives just how they are implementing non-dues revenue at their associations. One of the sayings that stuck with me was “Non-Profit is a Tax Term, Not a Business Plan.” This statement was made by an executive director of an association who has implemented several for profit incubator programs that have poured millions into their endowment. Yes, I said millions.
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The Dynamic Benchmarking team is excited to be participating in the Non Due$-A-Palooza event happening this week and we look forward to sharing what we learn at this exciting event. We hear from associations all the time that non-dues revenue is becoming increasingly important and at Dynamic Benchmarking, we have developed several programs that can help your association utilize benchmarking as a non-dues revenue generator and member benefit.
One of the items we get asked frequently is, exactly what constitutes a taxable item when non-profits like associations start increasing their non-dues revenue. Our friend at Tenenbaum Law Group, Jeff Tenenbaum recently wrote a blog article on this subject and since it's full of great advice, we thought we'd share it here with our followers.
In a recent whitepaper, “Designing the Future of Associations,” produced by Digital Now, 81% of association executives stated that they expect data science and analytics to have a significant impact on their sector. As we look towards the last half of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 this stat is not surprising. As we’ve learned from many of you, your association is facing increased competition on the member front, due to the catapulted digital transformation of many industries. Pre-pandemic, many associations were the central hub of information and data for its members. As sponsors, vendors and associations alike in all industries ramped up their digital offerings, this created a new competitive threat that many associations simply had not faced before. In addition to having this increased competition, membership is decreasing as noted in the 2021 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. 47% of associations reported a decrease in membership over the previous year. Yet, on average 43% of an association’s annual revenue is derived from dues. So, what can associations do to address these new concerns?
Benchmarking over the past few years has been evolving, and COVID-19 simply catapulted us into the era of the shorter more frequent studies. As a benchmarking company in the association industry, we at Dynamic Benchmarking have seen the needs of our clients shift to deliver smaller, more time sensitive, studies periodically throughout the year. However, they did not want to sacrifice what we refer to as the "me" data or the personalized benchmarks for their members. They wanted the simplicity of a basic survey, but they did not want to give up the benefits of benchmarking.
Example of a Benchmarking Question with Me Data in Purple:
Example of a Question with No Me Data:
“For associations to make better decisions and fewer mistakes, they need to embrace the idea of collective intelligence.” Lior Zoref, a researcher and author of Mindsharing: The Art of Crowdsourcing Everything
February 14th, a day that is loved and loathed all over the world. All one must do to prove this, is take a peek at one of their social media feeds and there will be a variety of posts negative and positive about this celebrated day. Whether you are a Valentine’s fan or not, it serves as a good reminder to organizations of all types and sizes to take a look at the ways they are showing the love to their clients, members and employees throughout the year. For associations, this is even more important because our purpose is to deliver for our members. Members expect the association to know their needs and fulfill them with the same level of service they provide their clients. But with a diverse membership base, how does the association management team know that ALL members are feeling the love?