Every association needs to try to attract new members, especially those associations that are experiencing membership decay as long-term members move towards retirement. But is it possible to grow your membership without a huge advertising spend or a massive recruitment push?

Many associations are facing a daunting generational challenge. Baby Boomers are retiring en masse, having provided many associations with a stable membership for the past 40 years.

Every hour of every day, data is accumulating in the depths of your tech stack. If you can make sense of this data, you'll find everything you need to increase membership, build engagement and offer the kind of programming that your members desperately want.

But how do you turn data into insight?

One of the frustrating things about member engagement is that it’s such a vague concept. We know engagement matters, we know we need engagement, we know that we’ll lose members if they are not engaged. And yet, it's hard to say exactly what engagement is.

Member engagement can be harder to measure in trade associations than in professional societies. But that doesn’t mean it’s not vitally important.

Why do some members leave an association while others go on to become board members? Why are some people passionate, vocal advocates for association membership, while others don’t even bother to open emails?

It all comes down to one thing: member engagement.