How to Build an AMC Culture That Retains and Sustains

This guest post is provided by Impact AMC.

Impact Association Management was a recent recipient of the 2022 Dane County Small Business Awards. This award recognizes small businesses that make a real difference in their communities and for their employees. As an association management company (AMC) that saw growth through the pandemic, we’re continuously reevaluating our work model and centering it around three main components – maintaining schedule flexibility, building and maintaining real connections, and providing professional development opportunities. We encourage other associations, AMCs, and businesses to implement these strategies to see higher retention rates, better productivity, and overall staff happiness – as we have!

During the selection process, your association’s board of directors will ask a lot of questions about a new association management company (AMC). The questions will probably focus heavily on costs, staffing levels, past successes, and how the AMC has performed with similar associations.

Knowing how your AMC develops its cost structure and understanding how they’ve guided associations through the same obstacles to success is important—but many boards often fail to ask about an AMC’s culture.

The transition from one association management company (AMC) to another can be one of the biggest challenges an association’s board of directors will ever face. Even when the transition goes smoothly, replacing one staff team and headquarters with an entirely different one in a relatively short timeframe is always going to be difficult.

But while transitioning to another AMC may be challenging, it is often necessary. A board of directors and their AMC can become strategically misaligned. The association and/or the AMC may outgrow one another. There can be a need for new perspectives and new capacities.

When your board selects a new association management company (AMC), it isn’t like firing an employee.

It is like firing several employees, all at once.

Top 10 Tips Tried & True Tips & Tricks for Business Development

 Here is a helpful top 10 list to assist you in ensuring success in your business development efforts offered by Jeanne Sheehy, MBA, CMO, Bostrom, Megan Woodburn, CAE, Founder and CEO, Strategic Association Management (SAM) and Katie Callahan-Giobbi, Head of Business Development, SmithBucklin.

1. Growing the Pie

As an association leader, you know the importance of engaging your members. How you communicate with members and the opportunities you offer directly impact their experience with your organization and the chance that they’ll renew.  With a dedicated and comprehensive engagement strategy, your member retention rate is much more likely to increase!

However, it’s likely that your more traditional engagements are on pause. As the global pandemic continues to keep many indoors and away from large in-person events, your regular member meetings and large conferences must either be postponed or pivoted to the online space.