Onboarding an Association
In 2017 Delegant was contracted to take over the association management for a global membership association. The association was for professionals in a healthcare related discipline. The association was founded in 1987 and at its peak in the early 2000s had over 1500 members, a 2 day annual conference, and ran a wide range of training courses. Since that point the membership numbers had fallen and the annual conference had reduced in size in terms of both delegates and exhibitors. Additionally, the internet had changed how people accessed information which affected the benefits of membership. By 2017 the number of members had fallen to below 500, the conference had become a small one day event with less than 80 attendees, the conference sponsorship had all but dried up and the association’s reserves were reducing year by year. The Board of the association made the decision to change who provided association management services to their organisation.
After a selection process Delegant was contracted to take over the association management. Our remit was as follows:
- Simplify processes to reduce costs by maximising efficiencies
- Build new association website and conference website
- Re-invigorate the annual conference
- Work with the Board to modernise the association and re-engage members
- Work towards rebuilding the financial reserves to ensure the long term survival of the association
- Improve the visibility on social media
Financial Management
Membership Management
Website & Design
Secretariat
Conferences & Events
Since Delegant took over the association management we have achieved and surpassed each of these goals. The biggest simplification of process was achieved by automating the membership system, the event and conference booking system and linking this with Xero, our accounts software. This significantly reduced the amount of manual input and therefore reduced the administration costs.
Achievements that have been made by the Board of the association since working with Delegant include:
- 25% increase in the number of members
- Doubled the number of conference delegates
- 40 times increase in sponsorship revenue
- Conference moved from a one-day event to 2 days with conference dinner and pre-conference activities
- Introduced the annual awards for the association
- Developed a new range of online learning courses which Delegant have provided the technical support to both create the courses and incorporate into a Learning Management System that we have developed
- Increased social media engagement significantly with some posts having 20,000 views
- More than doubled the financial reserves of the association
The financial reserves are shown below (source: Companies House)
