Tapping into hidden revenue
Associations that diversify their revenue streams to incorporate non-dues revenue are much better positioned to deal with economic uncertainty, keep a robust staff, and explore valuable new member benefits and programs.
In this guide, I’ll explore a few of the ways you generate non-dues revenue for your association. Then I’ll dive a little deeper into how you can create successful sponsorship and advertising programs. With these strategies, your association can tap into new financial growth avenues and offer even better value to members. Let’s get started!
Non-dues revenue is income generated from sources other than membership fees. It plays a pivotal role in maintaining and enhancing the programs and services your association offers. It’s a fundamental pillar for financial stability and growth.
Having diverse revenue streams stabilizes your association’s financial resources and can help you invest in programs, events, and member services that ultimately draw new members. Generating income beyond just member dues also allows you to keep membership (and other programs) affordable without sacrificing the quality of services and benefits you offer.
Without non-dues revenue, it’s very difficult to keep the financial ask on members low, fuel improved events and content, maintain a staff size that avoids burnout, and tap into the association’s full potential.
Higher Logic created a Sample Advertising Prospectus template to help you get started or update your sponsorship program.
Though many association professionals know that non-dues revenue is vital to their association’s ability to keep providing value to members, they may not know where to start. It’s important to identify the right non-dues revenue strategies that align with your association’s unique needs, target audience, and potential sponsors and partners.
Your priority is your members – you don’t want to spam them with advertisements or sponsorships they’re not interested in. Luckily, many non-dues revenue tactics create value for members.
There are several types of non-dues revenue activities. You might already be doing some of these, but for those you’re not already doing, consider which could work for your members – or what you could adjust to broaden your revenue sources.
Implementing these strategies can create additional revenue streams for your organization while delivering value to your members. Regular evaluation and adaptation of these initiatives based on member feedback and market trends are crucial to maximize their effectiveness.
When done right, having a sponsorship program is a great way to generate value for your members and non-dues revenue for your association. Many companies have a regular part of their budget dedicated to sponsoring events and purchasing external marketing placements. To claim a portion of that budget for your association, you have to communicate the value you can offer sponsor companies:
When crafting your sponsorship offerings, you should also keep in mind what benefits your members gain from your sponsors. Yes, you want to attract non-dues revenue, but you don’t want to ostracize your members (and jeopardize dues revenue) by making them feel like you’re selling things that aren’t relevant.
One of the takeaways we’ve often heard from experts at the Non Dues-a-Palooza conference is to explore the assets and platforms you already have with an eye toward monetization. Think about your email, online community, events, etc. and ask yourself how you could build sponsorship into those to offset the cost of those platforms or channels.
Some examples include:
Download our one-page guide guide to using your community data to drive revenue!
As a former association marketer and Higher Logic customer, I have first-hand experience monetizing the investment my association made in our member experience platforms. In my former role as the Assistant Director of Marketing at Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, (PRIM&R), I helped run a sponsorship program that eventually completely covered the cost of our Higher Logic Thrive Marketing and Community products – in fact, the year before I left we brought in over $60k non-dues revenue from email and community ads alone (not including conference sponsorship).
What I found is that you can start small and work your way up. At first, we were only selling member newsletter sponsorship, but as that began consistently selling out, we expanded our offerings.
I’ll admit that setting the “right” price felt daunting, but we researched what other email, web, and community ads cost in our space. If you’re not responsible for purchasing ads for your organization, connect with the staff who are and ask what they’re spending as a starting point. Then just pick a price, give it a try, monitor performance, and adjust as needed.
For my program, I settled on between $1,000 and $1,500 for email ads, and $300-600 for web and community ads because our community was new and we needed time to build the positive reputation of the community for vendors and members.
You can always adjust pricing until you hit the sweet spot. If something’s not selling, try lowering the price, or offering a complimentary placement to a trusted sponsor who’s already buying other placements so that other vendors can see what that placement looks like in action. Or run your own ads (and maybe ads for your sponsor opportunities) in those openings – this can help you generating awareness (and performance stats, like click rates on email ad banners) so sponsors know what they’re buying.
Also, don’t be afraid to raise prices even if it means less ads are sold – having fewer, but higher-paying sponsors can help you maximize revenue per placement while lightening the load on staff.
An association platform like Higher Logic Thrive not only helps you create an engaging member experience, it’s also perfectly positioned to give sponsors the kind of year-round exposure and interaction they’re looking for. Because of this, it’s a great avenue for generating non-dues revenue.
The great news for associations is that this kind of powerful technology becomes more accessible when you consider how to use it to generate non-dues revenue – many of Higher Logic’s existing customers have more than paid for the cost of their platform.
Any association, whether for profit or non-profit, is better positioned with powerful communication, community, and member experience tools that scale to generate additional, recurring sponsorships. The end result: a strong, secure association that becomes indispensable for both members and sponsors.
Set your organization up for a solid financial future with flexible, non-dues revenue streams. Explore our tips and resources to...
Read MoreThis easy-to-use template will help you create an advertising prospectus to support your non-dues revenue goals.
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