03/13/2025

How to Rethink Your Business Model

With a greater need for non-dues revenue, leaders must develop big-picture strategies

“Creativity” and “revenue generation” do not often wind up in the same sentence, unless an indictment is involved. But these are complicated times for associations, and a bit of (legal) imagination is important as they think about how they keep the doors open.

That challenge is one issue I explored in the latest batch of Associations Now Deep Dives, which cover revenue generation broadly and creative approaches more specifically. For instance, I spoke with association experts about the importance of developing new business models that can better respond to the needs of current members, while also drawing in new ones.

That process starts with getting smart about data, according to Vista Cova CEO Lowell Aplebaum, FASAE, CAE: "It's going to be up to the association to become more fluent in not just how to aggregate [data], but to translate it into implementation for their members,” Applebaum said. And that doesn’t happen by accident: You need a plan for what your organization’s goals are, and what data you’ll leverage to meet them.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.