A Masterclass in Community

The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) has been using Higher Logic’s community platform since 2011 to support their members and their mission. Over time, they’ve used their online community, Collaborate, to boost almost everything they do: from volunteer programs, credentialing, events, education, member retention efforts, and more. In 2023 they upgraded to Higher Logic’s latest community product, Higher Logic Thrive Community, to help them continue creating the best member experience possible.

Community Supports The Members and The Mission

“The Collaborate community really helps us support ASAE’s main mission,” said Wanda Little-Coffey, MBA, CAE, ASAE’s Senior Director of Volunteer Relations. “We’re here to help our members do their job better. We want them to be successful. And to help our members we aim to provide both information and networking – because not all insights and information come from formal written information or events. Learning happens in different places and sometimes the most powerful insights come from talking to someone.”

“When people come to our in-person events, like ASAE annual, that’s great, but the online community provides an opportunity, too, for people to learn from each other. Maybe someone asks a question or shares a solution in the community and it inspires you to learn more or dig deeper – and you can then connect with that person and say, “I saw what you said, I’ve got more questions, can we chat?” Those are important tools. And that’s why the community is such an important part of ASAE’s member benefits.”

ASAE’s Collaborate community not only provides members with connection and resources, it also allows ASAE to personalize the member experience and provide what different member segments are looking for. Priya Viswanathan, ASAE’s Director of Application Development, shared: “If our members are interested in it, there’s a community for that! We use the community for all different purposes. For volunteers, committees, awards, our credentialing program and many of our other initiatives, like our CEO community or our Diverse Executive Leaders program. There are a lot of conversations that are happening in Collaborate. Collaborate provides a space that reflects who you are and where you stand in your life and career. No matter where our members are or what their needs may be, Collaborate offers a dedicated area where they can engage with like-minded peers.

Wanda added, “Many of our community users subscribe to about three communities a piece, which is great, because most of us in associations don’t just do one thing, we have a lot of different work functions – so having a community platform and allowing members to join different specialized discussions allows members to look across lots of interest areas on a regular basis.”

Improving Volunteering and Committees While Saving Staff Time

One major benefit of using their Higher Logic community (first, Higher Logic’s original community, and now Higher Logic Thrive), is how it enabled ASAE to improve their volunteer program. Like many associations, they rely on volunteers to support many of their initiatives – and likewise, their members often look for volunteer programs to advance their careers and get more involved in their industry.

“One of the triggers for us choosing Higher Logic originally was the Volunteer Management piece,” said Wanda. “It allows us to list all the roles and opportunities that staff need member volunteers for. This includes our calls for councils and committees, which are a longer commitment, as well as ad hoc, short-term opportunities. This gives people an opportunity to find volunteer roles that made sense in their world.”

“We’re always looking for the best way to utilize all of those raised hands and Higher Logic’s Volunteer Manager really allowed us to centralize all those calls and potential volunteers and that’s extremely helpful. It took down a lot of barriers and allowed us to create more diverse groups of volunteers because we’re doing promotion to all members. And because it helps us make volunteer opportunities and processes transparent, it reduces the mistaken perception that ‘how you become a volunteer’ is a secret or that you have to know someone to be chosen – there’s no secret. All members need to do is fill out the application!”

Khia N. Burke-Azeez, MBA, MPA, ASAE’s Director of Member and Volunteer Data and Engagement, also shared how much easier the community makes managing committees: “I think one of the best components of Collaborate is that our councils and committees can have their own private community. This makes it so much easier for staff liaisons to capture what is happening from month to month and keep information in one space, utilizing the community library for document storage, and having continuity and historical content. Any time a new leader comes onboard, they can look back in the dedicated community and potentially see what happened three or four years ago, when they were not a council member. From a staffing standpoint, it also enables us to move staff around as needed – if someone changes positions in the organization and needs to be added or removed from a committee, everything is stored in such a way that it’s easy to transfer.”

Member Value = Member Retention

One of the keys to retaining members is providing them with ongoing value. ASAE’s Collaborate community not only does that, it’s often the reason members realize they want to renew.

“I’ve observed that one valuable aspect of Collaborate is its ability to remind members to renew their membership in an indirect way,” said Priya. “Members often overlook renewal notices and invoices. However, when they are unable to access Collaborate, a member-only community, that prompts them to contact us. At that point, we inform them that while we appreciate their past membership, it has expired, and we provide guidance on how to renew. Over the years, I have sent numerous emails where the loss of access to Collaborate has made members aware of their lapsed status.”

“Much like with any association, members often reach out to us when they need something, such as attending an event or participating in educational opportunities that occur only a few times a year. However, our community offers a space for continuous learning and daily connections. If a member attempts to log in during a time of need and suddenly cannot access those benefits, it serves as a consistent reminder to maintain an active membership.”

And sometimes all it takes is having another channel to reach the right member at the right time. Wanda shared that, in part, the community is helpful for renewal and retention because the need to renew finally gets seen by the person most invested in their membership: “While we do have individual memberships, some of our members are organizational members. So, we may have been reminding the billing contact, but once the individual realizes they can’t access the community they’re more motivated to connect with whoever they need to internally to get that membership renewed.”

Building Up Events, Education, and Professional Development

ASAE’s community has also been beneficial for boosting engagement from events, education, and professional development programs. For example, they use Collaborate to support their credentialing program, the Certified Association Executive (CAE), with a community run by ASAE as well as user-created groups, where members can ask questions and discuss preparation for and maintenance of their credentials.

For events, too, the community can tie in before and after the event. Before the event, ASAE encourages speakers to share in the community that they’re going to be speaking and the topic they’re presenting on, which helps ASAE get the word out about events and build their profile as a thought leader. After events, the community serves as another point of connection – instead of just having one, dated opportunity for member engagement, they can keep member conversations going.

“We’ve been experimenting with how we can tie our education and learning programs with the Collaborate community,” said Wanda. “For example, we hosted a Women’s Exchange event that brought together women in the association industry to talk about their careers. We ended up then creating a group within Collaborate so attendees can continue to talk and network. And that allows us to continue building engagement and community after the event. An event-specific community isn’t something that works for every event, but it’s been really successful for this event.”

Priya added that for events like their Women’s Exchange Forum, which provides a more casual exchange – as if members were having a conversation with a friend – the online community has been a great follow-up strategy: “I think part of the success of this event and the related community came from how much people enjoyed the conversations we had – and the community provided them with a space to continue those conversations.”

Having a virtual space for members has proven particularly important during the height of the pandemic and beyond. “We really saw this surge of community usage when we were in the pandemic and everyone was home and wanted to connect,” said Khia. “We especially saw an uptick in virtual events shared on Collaborate – both by ASAE and our members. And while that has decreased now that we are back in person and people are re-emerging into society, we hold strong in that space of community events. A lot of our councils and committees host webinars that have become monthly or quarterly staples in their community. I know, I worked on one of our awards programs, the Gold Circle Awards and we utilize that community event space consistently throughout the program to make sure that our judges know what is happening and can communicate with us.”

Member Data and Member Experience

Another important benefit ASAE gains from using their community is the insights and data it can provide. The ability to see, analyze, and use all their member data is crucial in leveling up their member engagement strategies.

“The future of data is insight,” said Reggie Henry, CAE, Chief Information and Performance Excellence Officer at ASAE. “We don’t want to measure how well we did against old strategy, because it’s constantly changing. We have these stereotypes in our minds about how to use data analytics – as if it’s still based on reporting and meetings. But your data can influence the day-to-day fabric of your organization.”

In reviewing their data, ASAE saw:

• Members with at least 1 community activity per month generate 5x more revenue than users with fewer activities per month.
• Users who attended the annual event had over 6 times more community activities than users who did not attend the annual event.
• Members who renewed had over 50% more community activities than members who did not renew.

And beyond ASAE Collaborate, the industry at large can also reap the benefits from the data they have. ASAE staff who research and put together articles for ASAE’s newsletter, communications, and Associations Now look through community conversations to see what topics and they should prioritize for upcoming content and identify potential authors. ASAE’s Tech Council gets insights in real-time and can look out for trends and patterns – including keeping an eye out for upcoming shifts in technology and legislation in the field.