Maybe This Is How Associations Do It

When I joined ASNT as Senior Manager of Conferences and Meetings, it was my first job inside an association. I had worked in conferences before, and understood the business of producing an event, but I did not yet understand the association environment or the history behind many of its practices.

Several things stood out to me almost immediately and made me question why they were being done that way. Committee and board meetings filled much of the conference schedule. The technical program leaned heavily toward research papers that were often better suited to researchers than to the technicians in the audience. The awards banquet lasted more than three hours. Badges were printed and stuffed in advance, along with meal tickets attendees had to keep track of throughout the event. There was even something called the "Spouse Program." I had no idea what it was or why it existed.

I remember thinking, more than once, "This is not necessarily how I would do it, but maybe this is how associations do it."

When you enter an established organization, you naturally assume its practices exist for reasons you have not yet learned. Sometimes they do. Other times, the original reason made sense, but the practice continued long after the conditions that created it had changed.

After Neal Couture, FASAE, CAE, became ASNT's CEO, he observed that in many areas we were still operating like associations did in the 1980s and 1990s. No one had intentionally created an outdated organization. ASNT had accumulated programs, structures, expectations, and traditions over many years, and eventually the fact that something had always been done became the primary reason for continuing to do it.

ASNT was not unique. Many associations are working through operating models designed for a different environment. By operating model, I mean the programs, structures, relationships, and ways of working through which an association carries out its purpose. Those elements often become embedded in budgets, bylaws, technology, staff responsibilities, and volunteer expectations, making them difficult to reconsider even when the world around them has changed.

The question is not whether every traditional practice should be eliminated. It is whether we are willing to examine those practices honestly.

The Purpose Is Not the Problem

Associations still serve an important purpose. They bring people together around professions, industries, causes, and shared interests. They create knowledge, establish standards, support careers, advocate for their fields, recognize achievement, and form communities that might not otherwise exist. Those needs have not disappeared.

What deserves examination is how associations have chosen to fulfill them.

Conferences, committees, chapters, publications, membership categories, credentialing systems, governance structures, and volunteer programs are not the purpose of an association. They are ways the association has chosen to advance that purpose. Some continue to work very well. Others still provide value but need to be updated. Some may no longer justify the resources, complexity, or attention they require.

This distinction matters because conversations about change often become conversations about identity. Questioning the annual conference can be interpreted as questioning the value of bringing people together. Reconsidering a committee structure can sound like diminishing volunteers. Changing a membership model can feel like abandoning members, while eliminating a tradition can be seen as disrespecting the people who created it.

But the purpose and the way we have traditionally fulfilled it are not the same thing. An association can remain committed to convening people while redesigning its conference. It can value volunteer expertise while changing how volunteer work is organized. It can recognize achievement without preserving a three-hour banquet.

We do not need to reinvent why associations exist. We need to rethink how they work.

Most of It Made Sense at the Time

It would be easy to look at traditional association practices and conclude that they were poorly designed. In many cases, that would be unfair. They were often practical responses to the limitations and expectations of their time.

Consider the spring-and-fall meeting rhythm found in many established associations. Before email, online collaboration platforms, and video meetings, volunteers needed to be in the same place to conduct much of the organization's work. Bringing everyone together twice a year created an efficient opportunity for boards, committees, and other volunteer groups to meet. A conference was not only an educational or networking event. It was also where much of the association's business got done.

The meeting schedule became part of the organization's rhythm. Committees planned around it. Volunteer leaders expected to attend. Staff roles, budgets, bylaws, and governance practices developed around those gatherings. Even after technology made it possible to work differently, the meetings remained because they had become part of what the conference was expected to provide.

The same pattern appears throughout association operations. A program begins as a reasonable response to a real need. It becomes established, and people build expectations around it. Eventually, the conditions change, but the program remains. The organization remembers what it does while gradually losing sight of why it began doing it.

Understanding that history changes the tone of the conversation. The point is not to ridicule earlier decisions or assume that current leaders are smarter than those who came before them. A good solution for one period does not automatically remain the best solution forever.

The Conference We Inherited

The ASNT annual conference reflected many of those accumulated decisions. It was a traditional scientific conference with a successful exhibit floor, but the educational program and the trade show sometimes appeared to be competing for the same audience rather than working together as parts of a shared experience.

The technical program was built primarily around research papers. Speakers generally had twenty minutes to present their work, followed by five minutes for questions. That format served researchers and others seeking advanced technical content, but much of the material was too abstract for technicians who wanted ideas they could apply when they returned to work. Twenty minutes was also rarely enough time to explain a practical problem, walk through the solution, and demonstrate its application.

The event lacked a clear progression. The opening reception took place on the exhibit floor on Monday evening, before the general session officially welcomed attendees on Tuesday morning. At the other end of the week, there was no meaningful closing moment. People simply began leaving as the schedule wound down.

Committee, council, and board meetings occupied much of the conference week, competing with the education, exhibits, and networking attendees had traveled to experience. The awards banquet lasted more than three hours and had become more formal than celebratory. Badges were prepared in advance with tickets that had to be distributed, collected, and enforced. The Spouse Program continued even though the social expectations that created it had changed considerably.

Not all of these practices caused the same degree of harm. Some were simply inefficient or dated. Others were interfering with the conference's ability to serve its audience. The goal was not to change everything that looked old. It was to determine whether the conference we had inherited remained the best way to bring the ASNT community together.

Changing the Conference Without Abandoning It

The changes that followed were intended to make the event work better for the people attending it while preserving the parts that continued to provide value.

We gave the conference a clearer beginning and ending. The opening general session and keynote were moved ahead of the welcome reception, allowing us to welcome attendees properly and set the tone and energy for the week. A closing keynote and lunch created a shared conclusion rather than allowing the conference to gradually fade as people left.

The educational program shifted toward professional development and practical application. We added content on topics such as management and ethics and used formats that gave speakers enough time to explain a practical problem, explore the solution, and show how it could be applied. Advanced research remained important, but it no longer had to carry the entire educational purpose of the annual event. The ASNT Research Symposium offered a more focused setting for research content and its audience.

The pandemic forced us to recognize that much of the association's governance work could be accomplished online. We moved most of those meetings away from the conference schedule, creating more room for education, exhibits, and networking. More recently, selected council gatherings have been held before the conference because meeting in person can support community, alignment, and a shared understanding of the association's direction. The difference is that those gatherings now have a defined reason for being there.

The awards banquet was gradually shortened, with recognition moved into general sessions where recipients could be acknowledged before larger audiences. Eventually, the formal dinner was eliminated, while the awards and social celebration remained. The Spouse Program was discontinued after attempts to redesign it failed to create enough value to justify the staff time involved. Onsite badge printing replaced advance preparation, and lunch tickets were eliminated after they created lines and frustration without reducing food costs.

At the same time, we did not assume everything inherited was broken. The exhibit floor was successful and important, so we preserved it and created more non-conflicting exhibit time. Research, recognition, volunteer interaction, and celebration all remained, but the way they were delivered changed.

What the Resistance Was Protecting

Of all the conference changes, the awards banquet produced some of the strongest resistance. For many long-serving members and past presidents, it was more than a dinner. It represented recognition, status, shared history, and a familiar way of celebrating people who had contributed to ASNT. Changing it felt to some like the association was turning away from part of its identity.

Those concerns deserved to be heard, but they also had to be weighed against what we were seeing at ASNT. The banquet had grown to more than three hours, attendance was uneven, and award recipients generally reached larger audiences when recognition moved into the general sessions. Moving the awards did not eliminate recognition. In many cases, it gave recipients greater visibility.

Over time, we also realized that many of the strongest objections to change were coming from the same relatively small group. That did not make their concerns invalid. A familiar critic can still identify a legitimate risk. The responsibility of leadership is to evaluate the substance of the concern rather than treating either the identity or the intensity of the person raising it as proof.

In evaluating these changes, we looked at attendance, participation, sales, survey responses, and other forms of behavior to develop a fuller picture of what our broader stakeholder community valued. None of those measures provided an automatic answer, but together they gave us more perspective than the intensity of a relatively small number of objections.

We continued to explain how decisions were made and what factors were considered, but transparency did not mean everyone had to agree before ASNT could move forward. As resistance stopped functioning as an informal veto, staff became more comfortable questioning long-held assumptions and bringing proposals forward for the board to consider.

The Question Applies Beyond Conferences

The conference was only one example. Once we became more comfortable separating purpose from mechanism, we began to see the same issue elsewhere.

ASNT had accumulated numerous membership categories and benefit structures, many built around discounts and access. The model reinforced the idea that an annual dues payment was the primary measure of someone's relationship with the association. We began asking whether membership should be the only doorway into the community or whether people could engage through education, events, publications, volunteering, and online communities.

That led to a free Associate membership while preserving paid levels for additional benefits. Paid membership remained important, but it became one way of organizing the relationship rather than the relationship itself.

We found a related but different issue in volunteer governance. The conference question had been about where and when governance work occurred. The larger governance question was whether committees and councils had clear purposes, useful responsibilities, and meaningful work. Some did. Others continued meeting largely because they had always met. Restructuring was intended to make volunteer participation more purposeful, not to reduce it.

The same examination can be applied to publications, chapters, credentials, standards, education, and nearly every other part of an association.

Preserve, Redesign, or Replace

The first question should be whether a program or practice is still serving the purpose it was intended to serve. If the purpose remains important but the current approach is no longer fulfilling it well, the next question is the one that prompted this entire effort: If we were designing it today, how would we build it?

That is a thinking exercise, not an invitation to ignore reality. Existing associations have obligations, contracts, systems, financial dependencies, accreditation requirements, staff limitations, and stakeholder expectations. Any transition has to account for them. The value of the question is that it prevents the current model from becoming the only model leaders are willing to imagine.

There is no single test that produces the right answer. Leaders may need to consider mission alignment, usefulness, participation, sales, financial return, staff capacity, strategic importance, and the opportunity cost of continuing the program. Mission should carry the greatest weight, but mission alignment alone is not enough. A program also needs to matter to an appropriate group of stakeholders.

That group does not always need to be large in relation to the entire industry. A program may serve a small specialty while still reaching a significant share of the people within it. Revenue and usage can provide evidence of value, but neither should be treated as automatic proof. Sales can be affected by pricing, access, promotion, and product quality, while some mission-critical work may never generate substantial revenue.

Preserve, redesign, or replace is not a formula that makes the decision. It is simply a way to organize the questions and examine the evidence. The answers will remain situational because leadership still requires judgment.

Give Yourself Permission to Ask

For association professionals, the first step is not deciding that a long-standing program needs to change. It is becoming comfortable enough to question whether it still makes sense.

Too many organizations remain stuck because no one wants to start that conversation. Staff may worry about upsetting a vocal group of members or volunteers. Board members may assume that a familiar program must still be important because it has existed for decades. Avoiding the discussion becomes easier than examining the evidence, and the status quo continues largely because no one is willing to challenge it.

Some practices will prove that they still serve the mission and should be preserved. Others may need to be redesigned, while some may no longer justify the resources and attention they require. The value of the discussion is that the answer is reached intentionally rather than inherited by default.

Leaders should explain how decisions were made and why the organization chose a particular direction, but transparency does not require universal agreement.

When I first entered association work, I often wondered whether the practices I was seeing were simply how associations operated. I now think the more useful question is whether that is how they should operate today.

About the author Barry Schieferstein, CAE, is chief operating officer of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT). He writes Rethinking How Associations Work, a practical look at what is still working, what needs updating, and how associations can redesign themselves for today.