Seth Godin Says...

...That 'average' won't cut it in our post-industrial working world. This is true at many levels. The idea also makes sense if you look at it from a nonprofit point-of-view: If your organization is just average, it's going to get lost in the shuffle in an environment that is becoming increasingly crowded with other groups offering a lot of what looks like the same thing. That's no secret. On the other hand, I can't tell you how many trade and industry associations we work with that are in a mad scramble to help their members recruit and retain skilled workers.

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ARC Best OF: Don’t be the Boiled Frog: Complacency No Longer an Option for NFP’s

Did you know that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will try to jump out? But if you put that same frog into a pot of water at room-temperature and heat it up gradually, the frog will let itself be boiled to death? We all know the world is changing. Change is everywhere we look, from our physical environment, to the way we relate and communicate to one another. Many of these changes are paradigm-shifting.

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ARC Best Of: Listen Up! Series on Member Needs & Satisfaction - Representing Member Needs A Challenge for Associations?

If you were to guess which area association members tend to be least satisfied with, what would it be? Programs and services? Nope. Influence and engagement? Close but not quite...Based on 47 member needs studies conducted over the past several years, representation of member needs to different stakeholder groups has consistently been at the bottom of the list in terms of member satisfaction.

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ARC Best Of: From Routine to Rockstar in Association Member Engagement

We all talk a lot about engagement in the association world. The term ‘member-driven’ is something that comes up a lot: I know a lot of association folk spend time talking about it in their board and staff meetings. Goodness knows we beat people over the head with it here on our blog...We know it can mean the difference between an association that is doing Okay and one that’s truly hitting it out of the park...but it’s an elusive beast. ..Or is it?

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ARC Best Of: What Would Reverse Innovation Look Like in Your Not-for-Profit?

Essentially, reverse innovation takes something as it is now, strips out all of the ‘bells and whistles’ that may be nice but are not essential to have, and turns it into something that fits the local market and delivers the same result or output.

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