Delivering the value members expect from an association takes hard work and exceptional strategy. When member retention and acquisition rates climb, association leaders know they are on the right track.

What does it take to hit peak membership and stay there? Four CEOs of associations with high member retention and acquisition rates explain how they did it and why recruitment and engagement practices never stop being a top priority.

Complimentary programming

Claire Fallon’s secret to member retention and acquisition is to build a vibrant and welcoming sense of community.

“It’s creating a space that people want to belong to and feel like they belong to,” Fallon, CEO and executive director of the International Society of Automation (ISA), told CEO Update.

“You don’t have to be a member to go to conferences, meetings, take trainings or join the standards committee. But once they see the value and realize they can go deeper by being a member, they join.”

The strategy has proven effective. Fallon began leading ISA in November 2021 and said that from year-end 2021 to year-end 2024, membership grew 42% and revenue increased 62%. This year, ISA has averaged 434 new members per month, up from 368 last year. The North Carolina-based society writes industry standards for automation, from cybersecurity to instrumentation and control, and offers certificate and certification programs for members who are engineers and technicians.

The introduction two years ago of Mimo, the artificial intelligence large language model available on ISA’s website, has aided member retention. Mimo is trained on ISA content and can answer questions in 13 languages. The number of questions nonmembers can ask in a day is limited.

“We’ve seen people come in, ask questions, want more information and join,” Fallon said. She sees the same outcome when nonmembers meet members via Connect, ISA’s virtual community for peers around the world to network and problem-solve, and at its two annual conferences.

“Membership is a lagging indicator of doing everything else right,” Fallon explained. “If you create the content and the value through their connections in this vibrant community, they will join.”

ISA also uses whimsical promotions to foster engagement and boost retention. Its Black Friday Sale, which includes seasonal discounts on trainings, membership and events for 10 days, generates more than $1 million in sales.

And International Automation Professionals Day in April, which has members and nonmembers sharing their career journeys on LinkedIn and posting photos of themselves at work, helps build community.

“We had 109 story submissions in 2025, compared with 79 in the previous three years combined,” Fallon said, noting some people posted pictures of their children wearing ISA T-shirts. “We also had more submissions this year by companies and influencers, demonstrating a growing reach for the campaign.”

What’s more, changing its membership renewal date last year from the anniversary of joining to calendar-based — everyone’s membership runs from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 — has been a game-changer.

“It helped us focus the rest of the year on things like member value,” Fallon said. “But we know that in September, we need to start ramping up reminders for people that Dec. 31 is coming.”

Out of many, one

AdvaMed achieved record-setting member retention and membership gains last year. But its success story began nine and a half years ago, when Scott Whitaker became president and CEO. Each year Whitaker has helmed the Washington-based association, it has experienced year-over-year membership growth, from 315 corporate member organizations his first year on the job to 615 today.

Annual revenue followed, nearly doubling from about $32 million in 2015 to $55 million now, and is on track to approach $60 million next year.

AdvaMed’s members are medical device/ technology companies, from large multinational corporations like Johnson & Johnson MedTech, Medtronic and Stryker, to small startups.

To reach more segments of the medical technology industry, Whitaker and his team of 90 employees divided membership into three divisions: AdvaMed Accel (small med-tech companies), AdvaMed Dx (diagnostic companies), and AdvaMed Imaging (imaging companies). Each division has its own board of directors that reports to a full board — “a home inside a home,” Whitaker said.

“Those companies can work together on policies and advocacy items unique to them and the full board supports that work as well. It allowed us to unify the industry, so all of those segments are represented.”

Find additional revenue sources

About 18 months after Whitaker joined AdvaMed, the association bought the company that was managing its conference, MedTech Conference Partners, from the Life Sciences Conference Group.

“We now operate and run the conference ourselves and do educational work,” Whitaker said. “That increased our nondues revenue on an annual basis and allowed us to grow at a rate we couldn’t achieve before. Over 100 new members joined last year.”

Whitaker tries to stay focused on the four core elements that AdvaMed does well: policy and advocacy, education and training, networking, and business development. “Small companies can engage with large companies that might buy them someday,” he said.

Prepare for the unknown

Whenever an association is hit with unanticipated issues, such as COVID and tariffs, adapting and executing is important, Whitaker said. He turns to the rapid response initiative he put in place for crisis management, meeting with the board to troubleshoot and get ideas from how others are handling the challenge. He also sends quarterly reports to members, updating them on the association’s work and recent wins.

“It’s an important aspect of engagement,” he said. “Members can see what you’re doing, and you can adjust quarter to quarter.”

When members call with a question, his team is clear about what they can help them with and execute promptly, Whitaker said, noting that’s what members pay them to do.

“I always tell my team, ‘We listen to understand, not respond,’” he said. “If you know the difference between the two, you can meet the goals our members have for their companies. If they do well, then we do well, and they will find value.”

Personalize renewals

Multiple strategies led the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) to record member retention rates of 98.4% from 2021 to 2022, and 98.1% from 2023 to 2024.

The approximately $10 million annual revenue association serves financial aid professionals and administrators overseeing loans and scholarships that help students finance their higher education. Among its membership are 29,000 individuals and nearly 3,000 higher education institutions.

“Our members are regularly held accountable for billions of dollars of federal financial aid,” Melanie Storey, president and CEO of NASFAA, said. “And we can help make sure they are in compliance with the rules to help administer those funds.”

Legislation like the One Big Beautiful Bill that passed in July are written using regulatory language, not from a practitioner’s standpoint. NASFAA staff are conversant in it and can make the connection from policy to practice, Storey said. Members, in turn, can then explain the complexity of these programs and how they might change in the future to students and parents who are making decisions about funding and financing college. This twofold value is part of the reason members join and renew each year.

“Ask Regs” (meaning ask us about regulations), a knowledge base available through NASFAA’s website, had nearly 600,000 individual searches and one million article page views in the last year, noted Beth Maglione, NASFAA executive vice president.

Another factor driving member retention is a personalized approach to dues renewal. At first, 80% to 85% of members automatically renewed their memberships, Maglione noted. The rest needed some prodding.

About six years ago, the membership team began calling members directly about renewals, instead of having other staff or a vendor make contact.

“The membership team was more adept at answering questions about renewals and adjusting invoices to upgrade or downgrade membership packages,” Storey said. “It offered a middle ground between renewing at the previous, higher level, and not renewing at all. They also provided detailed information on usage, benefits and opportunities.”

In addition, the calls give members a chance to discuss their challenges and the team an opportunity to connect them to products and services to help. The calls also give NASFAA feedback on current products and services in need of change or expansion.

Make member retention and acquisition separate jobs

When Angela Beddoe became CEO of the American Nurses Association (ANA) Enterprise, which includes the professional association, credentialing center, and foundation affiliated with the American Nurses Association, in 2024, she separated membership engagement and retention practices from membership acquisition strategies — and for good reason.

“Retention and engagement, and membership acquisition, deserve their own attention and strategy,” she said. “Once you capture that member, you have to pay attention to what you do with them after they join.”

The chief growth and operations officer handles member acquisition strategies, and the chief communications and strategic engagement officer steers engagement for the $29.7 million annual revenue Silver Spring, Maryland-based association.

Member retention, however, requires the work of both teams. So Beddoe transformed the association’s one-size-fits-all approach to an individualized, intentional way of finding out what members in the largest profession in health care need and delivering it.

“We don’t want their membership journey to be an adventure,” she said. “We want it to be a curated experience.”

Feedback from surveys and focus groups revealed that members want the association to improve their career journey by advocating for them, educating them and promoting excellence in the field.

“We make sure we’re getting their feedback on a constant basis,” Beddoe said. “Those are hard truths, not always sunshine and roses. You have to be able to look at it and say, ‘How can we pivot?’ There’s a fast world changing out there. The goal is to be ahead of it, not try to catch up.”

From nursing students to nurses ready to retire, appealing to a broad membership requires strategic engagement, Beddoe explained, creating an atmosphere for members to mentor and coach each other and become stronger together.

TIPS TO BOLSTER RETENTION AND ACQUISITION

Angela Beddoe: Consider the demographic. Truly listen to members to find out their needs and talk to nonmembers to learn what would encourage them to join. “Look at a multigenerational approach. Different generations require different ways to communicate and different value propositions,” she said. “Be intentional to all those demographics.” 

Melanie Storey: The whole package of offerings and support to members ensures the value of membership is clear; value is proven in member retention and acquisition rates. “We’re fortunate to have a history of high retention rates,” she said, noting some of the strategies NASFAA tried over the years had little impact. “But we’ve landed in a place that’s proving to be fruitful.” 

Claire Fallon: Be patient. “ISA had years of declining membership,” she said. “When I came on board in 2021, a lot of these successful strategies were already in the works. It takes time to rebuild or build that community.” 

Scott Whitaker: Be ready for change. “New political leadership can totally change the primary policy and advocacy work you have from year to year,” he said. “If you’re not able to adapt to that and execute toward the goals you’ve set, you’ll always be a little behind in the trade association space.”