The AMR Association Management Blog
Assessing the Quality of Your Member Experience: A Quiz
Assessing the Quality of Your Member Experience: A Quiz Your association invests time, energy, and resources into delivering a great experience to your members. But when was the last time you paused to ask if your efforts are actually working? Sometimes, the best way to answer that question is to look inward. Reflecting on your…
How to Manage People Well: 5 Rules for New Leaders
Stepping into a management role is a big shift. You’re no longer just responsible for your own work, you’re responsible for helping other people do theirs well. At AMR, this is especially true for the managers who oversee team members working across multiple clients. When someone’s day is split between two or three clients, good…
Adaptive Governance: How Association Boards Move from Approval to Agility
Here’s what we hear from association staff again and again: “Our board is brilliant. They’re thoughtful people who really care about the mission. But at the end of the day, we spend a lot of time in meetings talking about strategy, and then… nothing changes.” This isn’t a board problem. It’s a governance problem. Many…
4 Member Communication Strategies to Boost Engagement
Declining participation and member retention rates are among the biggest challenges associations face right now. At the start of 2025, the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report found that 26% of associations reported that their membership size had decreased. By July, that figure had risen to 36%. To overcome this hurdle, your association needs to prioritize effective…
Strategic Portfolio Management: Making Smart Bets in Uncertainty
You don’t have to bet everything on a single strategy. In fact, you shouldn’t. One of the most valuable lessons from corporate strategy and investment management is viewing your organization not as a single plan, but as a portfolio of strategic investments. Now, not all corporate methodology translates directly to the association space—associations have different stakeholders, different…
How Associations Can Create Learning Opportunities That Develop Leadership and Executive Presence
Helping members grow professionally is at the core of many associations’ missions and value propositions. Beyond networking and industry connections, we work to create opportunities for association members to build skills, expand their influence, and prepare for leadership roles. One of the greatest ways an association can demonstrate value is by investing in intentional leadership…
From Fixed Plans to Adaptive Strategy
What if your strategy isn’t to hit certain future targets no matter the circumstances, but to change and evolve along with the environment you’re in? Welcome to the concept of adaptive strategy! If you’ve spent years developing a traditional five-year plan, this might sound unsettling. But here’s the truth: when the world changes (and it will), a…
4 Tips to Improve Association Event Volunteer Management
In a 2025 study, 62% of associations reported and increase in in-person event attendance, and members listed in-person events as one of the top five most important benefits of their membership. This highlights the sustained success and growing importance of in-person events, creating more volunteering opportunities for associationyour members. Volunteers can beare crucial to an…
Scenario Planning: Preparing for Multiple Futures
Scenario Planning: Preparing for Multiple Futures (Not Predicting the One) If we learned anything from Back to the Future, it’s that predicting the future is tricky business. Marty McFly tried, and things got weird fast. The good news? Your association doesn’t have to predict the future. It just needs to prepare for multiple futures—and that’s exactly what scenario planning does. …
How Associations Can Create Learning Opportunities That Develop Leadership and Executive Presence
By DeLaine Bender CAE | | Association Management, Best Practices
From Fixed Plans to Adaptive Strategy
By Molly Marsh | | Association Management, Best Practices, Strategic Planning
4 Tips to Improve Association Event Volunteer Management
By Jordan Berger | | Best Practices, Events, Meetings
Scenario Planning: Preparing for Multiple Futures
By Molly Marsh | | Best Practices, Strategy
