I had the opportunity to chat with Stephanie Denvir, MS, CAE, Chief Member Experience Officer at the American Society for Quality (ASQ) about McKinley’s newly released Membership Reset report and the evolving landscape of association membership. And, importantly, what community means for the future of our member programs.
Check out a few of the key takeaways from our conversation below, and access the full recording here.
Launching an Online Community
Community and retention are inextricably linked. In our work we have found that associations may not be investing in community to the degree necessary to sustain member programs. This is not the case at ASQ. "Community is the heart and soul of ASQ. It's really at the center of everything we do,” Denvir shared.
Not only does ASQ invest in geographic and technical communities, but everything is underpinned by opportunities to connect online; an area ASQ has invested in recently. Last year, ASQ launched myASQ where members can have conversations, ask questions, and share best practices. The platform offers various ways to connect with other members, including through topics, areas of interest or geographical areas.
“One of our most popular questions or pages is the Introduce Yourself page, where people introduce themselves to the community and are then invited into conversations. We also encourage all of the staff to leverage it through their work, whether it's our publications team posting questions related to content that is out there, sharing upcoming events or things related to the geographic and technical communities,” said Denvir.
The new platform has helped to foster a sense of belonging among members, encouraging them to engage more deeply with the organization. It is also a tool that ASQ ensures is well resourced. The team at ASQ uses the platform to proactively send messages to their membership to communicate organization-wide changes and get real-time feedback.
Supporting Member Leaders
Another key tactic in ASQ’s community building strategy is the opportunity to volunteer in technical communities and in geographic sections at local and regional levels. The Society recognizes how important these communities are to the member experience. In fact, Denvir noted a connection between the number of activities among these member-driven groups and retention numbers.
“We really have built this amazing group of member leaders that live and breathe the society. We've been trying to give more resources or toolkits to help support our member leaders so that they have the tools that they need to be successful and then build that engagement for their community,” said Denvir.
Denvir emphasized, “If they're not delivering content, creating networking opportunities, sharing resources that meet the member's needs, we're not going to be successful. And so we ask how can we help them or how can we encourage them to collaborate with others.”
Embracing Technology
Denvir noted that they are looking at all the different ways that they can leverage AI. Culturally, the Society is well-positioned to experiment and innovate.
“It’s an endless challenge with technology, but we're always trying to push the envelope to move forward. I love that we're not afraid at ASQ to try new things, and especially with AI. We're not backing away from it. we're jumping in,” said Denvir.
She explained that they were looking for ways to use AI to curate content that is helpful to members and attracts non-members. They are using tools like Spark AI to get ideas for our session descriptions and also using AI for predictive analytics to create a greater member experience.
ASQ truly prioritizes the community in its membership strategy and embraces technology and member leaders to drive engagement and deliver value. Actions McKinley has identified as being critical to optimizing membership.
Make sure to check out the full conversation to hear more about these topics and also learn how ASQ is engaging the next generation of professionals!
