Many associations have been collecting information from their members for years …compiling, analyzing, and reporting trend data back to them as a much-valued service. If your association does this, you likely started by mailing surveys to your members and probably moved to an online survey tool like Survey Monkey or a combination of both paper and online data collection to collect data, hoping to simplify the process.
From my conversations with many association professionals at ASAE’s Annual Meeting and other industry events, this ‘hybrid’ survey collection process quickly turns into a beast. How do you figure out who replied? How do you account for multiple responses from one company? And how do you turn this data collection into meaningful information for both your association and your members? Chances are, you’ve either divided the tasks among some willing (or not-so-willing) employees who have other job responsibilities, or you hired an outside firm to manage the process for you. Either way, the process is likely tedious and costly, if not in outright fees, then in lost productivity and opportunity.
I’m sure you’ve thought many times “There must be a better way!” and you’re right, there is.
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) is an organization that was in exactly the situation described above, and they were determined to streamline their benchmarking process while cutting costs and increasing value to their members at the same time.
That’s when they found Dynamic Benchmarking.
AAM had a triennial financial and operational survey that has been around since the 90’s. It was triennial because that was all they could handle. The survey and data analysis process was too time consuming and expensive to conduct more frequently. Surveys needed to be drafted then printed and mailed. Responses were manually compiled and scrubbed and an outside consultant was hired to analyze results and create charts and tables. The results were then printed and published into a book available for purchase by members…. about six months later.
In 2011, AAM contracted with Dynamic Benchmarking to revamp their entire survey process. Dynamic Benchmarking now provides a simplified means of data collection and analysis that is more convenient and meaningful for their members and easy for AAM to administer. All for significantly less than the cost of their previous methods. In fact, because AAM’s executives believe in the benefits their platform has to offer, after their first year of offering the platform to their members, they decided to include it as a free member tool to their accredited museums.
I invite you to visit our Associations Case Study Page to read more about AAM’s transition to online benchmarking as well as the experiences of some of our other association customers.
And, as always, feel free to contact me, or anyone on our team with your questions about online benchmarking and the best solutions for your association.
