Chapter of the Future  

What if you could build your chapters from scratch? What would you keep? What would you toss out? What would your volunteers keep? And toss out?

"We live in a Knowledge Worker Age but operate our organizations
in a controlling Industrial Age Model that absolutely suppresses
the release of the human potential." – Stephen R. Covey

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands
but in seeing with new eyes." – Marcel Proust

Join us in a voyage for a new model. Start here for some resources, visit our blog to join the conversation or contact us to map out your own exploration.

Some Starting Facts

Fundamental Questions 

Volunteer Reply 

Traditional Model Weakness 

Chapter of Today vs Chapter of the Future 

Chapter of the Future Article

Starting Facts 

1. Discipline – What You Do
2. Interest – What You Care About
3. Issue – What Confronts You
4. Location – Where You Are

In associations, members naturally gravitate to groups within the association based on these elements. These groups are an association's components. Our traditional special interest groups (SIGs), communities of practice (CoPs), specialty sections and a myriad of ad hoc self-forming groups evolve from the first three. Chapters are all about location. The purpose: maximize opportunity for and value of face-to-face interaction among members.

Fact: Volunteers provide the energy fueling component – SIG, CoP, chapter – activity.

Fact: Associations have committed significant resources to components. An ASAE & The Center survey on how associations are supporting and measuring components reported that nearly 80% offer some level of administrative support largely at no cost while nearly 50% have at least one full-time staff person devoted to components activities – in addition to a median budget of $55,000 direct dollars. Full report here.

Fact:

In a 2006 industry survey conducted by Whorton Marketing & Research and Mariner Management & Marketing, we found that more than 40% of survey respondents indicate, in essence, that the chapter's presence has a positive effect on their likely future renewal in the sense that, if chapters did not exist, they would be less likely to participate. Full report here.

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Fundamental Questions Each association needs to answer for itself:

• What is the component offering that is unique to it?
• How do we measure performance – not standards of performance, but true outcomes?
• What level of structure and support by the parent organization will ensure each chapter fulfills its purpose without under- or over-utilizing the volunteer pool available? 
• What level of effort are volunteers willing to give?

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Volunteer Reply 

Mariner's research with volunteers from dozens of organizations along with ASAE & The Center's groundbreaking research on the Decision To Volunteer tell us…

What today's volunteers & members are asking for at the local level:

• Fun
• Connections
• Making a difference
• Flexibility 
• Balance

 What today's volunteers & members chafe at:

• Re-inventing the wheel
• Meetings for the sake of meeting
• Paperwork (without connection to results)
• Standing committees 
• Lengthy required time-commitments

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Traditional Model Weakness – Mismatch of structure to level of activity

The chart below shows that many of today's chapters produce activities of a size below the minimum threshold, but remain saddled with an administrative burden disproportionate to the level of activity appropriate or possible for the chapter.

The consequence: volunteers burn an excessive number of calories meeting irrelevant compliance standards rather than member-centric and size-appropriate performance standards. The result: volunteers don't step up, participation goes down.

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Chapter of the Future

– Driven first by function, then by form

* Some chapters may eventually achieve a financial size that requires some traditional structure, such as a central governing body, incorporation, formal by-laws.

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