What We've Learned About Building Community in Associations

Technology is everywhere. Everyone is on a screen, all the time. That makes the work of putting people in a room together more valuable now than it has ever been.

In my last post I said the one thing an association manager can really do is build the room. That means creating an environment where relationships can start. It takes a lot of forms. A membership meeting. A social event. A lunch between two people who met through the chapter. A ballgame. The format matters less than the fact that you keep making the opportunity.

Associations retain members when members feel they are getting value. Sometimes that value is tangible. Discounts. VIP access. A handshake with a decision maker. Those things help. But the thing that keeps someone renewing year after year is almost never the discount. It is the people they now know.

Here is the honest part. As association managers, we can only do so much. We can set the table. We can plan the event, work the registration desk, and make the introductions we can see. The rest belongs to the committees, the board, and the members themselves. The community either gets built by the people in it or it does not get built at all.

This year I watched it get built.

One of our long time members decided to leave the city they had been in and move somewhere new. Members of that chapter got together and threw them a goodbye party. It was not a chapter event. It was not on the calendar, not on a budget line, and not something any of us planned. It happened outside the association, between people who only knew each other because of the association.

Nobody asked them to do that. That is the entire point. We built the room. They built the friendships. And when it mattered, those friendships showed up on their own.

If you are thinking about joining

Eric and Melissa Lesch joined me on the podcast to talk about this from the member side, and it is worth your time: watch the episode.

My advice is simple. Before you write a check, go to a meeting and watch the room.

Are people moving around, or is everyone locked into the same table they sat at last month? Are members talking to a variety of people, or just the three they walked in with? Are there fresh faces?

That last one matters more than people realize.

I recently attended an in person meeting for one of our clients. I looked around and joked that I only knew about half the people there. I had missed the last three membership meetings and trainings. Three meetings away, and half the room had turned over.

That kind of rotation makes some members anxious. I understand why. It can feel like the group you knew is slipping away. But it is actually the best sign there is. It means people want to be a first time guest at your meetings. It means the room is worth walking into. The chapters I worry about are the ones where I recognize everybody.

Heading to a conference this fall?

Conference season is here. If you are going, do not just show up. Go with a plan.

Pick three people before you go. Look at the attendee list, the speaker lineup, the sponsor list. Choose three names you want to meet, and find them. Three is doable. “Network more” is not.

Do not sit with your chapter. You already know those people. Take the seat at the table where you know no one. It is a fifteen second decision that changes your entire conference.

Show up early and stay late. The real conversations do not happen during the session. They happen in the ten minutes before it starts and the twenty minutes after it ends. Most people clear out. Do not be most people.

Ask a better question. “What do you do” gets you a title. “What is the hardest thing on your plate right now” gets you a conversation. Everyone in that room is dealing with something you have already dealt with.

Introduce two people who should know each other. This is the fastest way to become valuable at a conference, and it costs you nothing. Connectors get remembered.

Follow up within three days. One short message, referencing something specific you talked about. Most people never do this, which is exactly why it works.

None of this requires you to be an extrovert. It requires you to be intentional.

The takeaway

Build the room. Then trust the people in it.

That is the whole job. Everything else we do as association managers is in service of getting the right people in the same place, and then getting out of the way.