Here are the pieces we identified as top priorities among thought leaders in the space and our take on how associations can make progress in these areas right now.
How Can Associations Better Prepare Data for AI?
Our community is beyond curious about leveraging AI to ease staff workloads, engage members, and better inform decision-making processes. And so it’s no surprise that data quality, specifically how to condition data to enable AI, emerged as a recurring topic of conversation. This was so top-of-mind for the group that it was not only present in every AI session we attended but also a major topic in almost every break-time or lunch conversation we joined.
Why is this? Because two facts are increasingly clear.
- Associations must leverage AI to keep up with changing member needs.
- AI is most effective when fueled by accurate, complete data.
For associations who have long been the keepers of massive amounts of member data, the struggle to turn these mountains of information into a usable resource for staff, let alone AI enablement, is a chore. Common obstacles to this process include integrations, legacy systems, and incomplete data.
Data Maturity Assessments Emerge as Clear Next Step
How do associations begin to tackle this process? There’s consensus that organizations need a comprehensive data plan. That plan should, at the very minimum, stop the creation of dirty or incomplete data in the short term while moving toward integrated, accurate data sets that support AI and data-first initiatives.
A data maturity assessment is a great place to start and will help define the current state, challenges, and opportunities in front of an organization. This weaves together data quality, integration strategy, data governance, and security into a comprehensive view of how data is used in the business. This becomes the departure point for data strategy.
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How Can Associations Find Better Alignment With Their Audiences?
Many of these data-specific concerns were mentioned in larger discussions surrounding the need for stronger audience engagement.
Here are some of the common questions we heard:
- Do our digital experiences meet our constituents where they are?
- Do we understand our members’ wants and needs? Are those wants and needs informing our decisions?
- Are our offerings – certifications, classes, accreditations, etc.- still relevant to our members?
These questions all speak to a consistent undercurrent – member expectations have changed so significantly that we are no longer sure we are delivering enough value to stay relevant. We are all so busy trying to support the current state that we might miss the opportunity to think holistically about our organizations.
Changes to Audience-Facing Strategies Should Start with an Audit
One of fusionSpan’s clients, a global association, recently found themselves asking many of these same questions. They recognized a need to improve their relevancy to their members and embarked on a digital strategy audit to help identify areas of improvement and opportunities for modernization.
fusionSpan’s Digital Strategy Team worked with them to build member personas and conduct audience interviews that provided a more complete understanding of the most prominent issues facing their members and how they are perceived in their constituent groups. This led to the discovery of both immediate changes and longer-term strategic initiatives to build engagement over time.
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How Can Associations Be More Efficient?
Doing more with less is a constant, especially in the world of associations where lean teams are a norm. This conversation is not new, but we noticed a change in the scope of the discussion as association leaders focus more on staying ahead of trends, leveraging growth opportunities within the status quo, and identifying opportunities to automate and rationalize processes.
We saw a compelling demo from Salesforce of how AI can help reduce membership churn. When a set of pre-defined behaviors are observed, alerts and notifications help staff focus proactively on the most at-risk members first. The vision was clear: organizations that leverage data effectively will deploy their resources most efficiently.
Associations are Committed to Making the Jump
Over the past few weeks, the fusionSpan team has spent a lot of time listening to and learning from the people leading these initiatives from the ground. While at times, there is a faint sense of overwhelm, the more prominent theme has been a dedication to action in the face of change. If we can help you engage, empower, and grow your organization reach out – we’d love to share what we know and do.
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