Service
- Organizational Assessment covering all areas of the association’s business
- Several recommendations were made regarding people, programs, governance, and technology
Sample Issues & Recommendations
- Issue: The association CEO was stretched thin, and unable to focus attention on staff management and internal operations. Staff skills and resources were poorly aligned with program needs.
- Recommendation: Hire a Director of Operations with association membership and marketing experience to manage internal operations, and bring in association membership skill sets. Allow the CEO to focus on advocacy, board interactions, and external relationships. Through attrition, shift alignment of skill sets to better match needs, and hire outside contractors for some smaller programs.
- Issue: The association journal had been struggling to solicit enough submissions, and was running in the red due to a lack of advertising revenue and publication exposure.
- Recommendation: With insufficient submissions and readership, the journal is not a major engagement point for members. Sunset the journal, shift staff salary and resources to more beneficial programs, and end ongoing losses due to profit imbalance.
- Issue: The board membership was allocated geographically, struggled with age diversity, and the nomination process was having difficulty developing diverse board successors. Some practice areas felt underrepresented on the board.
- Recommendation: Reallocate board seats by practice area and career stage to introduce more diverse representation. Reduce requirements for prior volunteer experience for nominations, to widen the available pool of volunteers.
Resolution
- The organization has made several staffing changes to align with their strategic and operational needs. Full time staff are reduced to primary program needs, and contractors were engaged for outside sales and meeting planning.
- The Board recently agreed to sunset the journal. Staff salary and printing costs were reclaimed.
- The Board recently changed seat allocations to fall along practice and career stage rather than geography, allowing for more diverse candidates to be nominated.
Contact Dennison & Associates to find out how we can help you perform an operational review to reveal potential opportunities to increase member satisfaction and association productivity.