The Future of Membership
A cohort experience for association leaders to reimagine membership for young professionals.
Cohorts for Q4 2025
Chicago, IL
October 22-23
Washington, DC
November 5-6
Trusted by these organizations
Young professionals are not sticking around
Young professionals join professional associations less often and engage less deeply. These trends are well-established and consistent across all professions.
Association leaders can be tempted to believe, "When they grow up, they'll realize how important the association is, and do the right thing and join." But all of our research and years of evidence say this isn't going to happen.
We need to reimagine membership to meet the needs, context, and expectations of young professionals.
"The Highlanders have created a thoroughly interesting and rewarding approach to demystify experiential design and create people-first solutions that improve member relationships. The cohort approach is stimulating, working side-by-side with other associations to solve our shared challenges in novel ways."
"The Future of Membership Cohort has been absolutely invaluable in understanding and contextualizing why young professionals are finding alternatives to associations and what we need to do to stay relevant to them. Highland's approach and research has helped me think differently about our processes and given me the tools to transform them."
"I've been looking at member data for 30 years and I've never seen anything like the content and quality of Highland's research. Their work is incredibly insightful and actionable."
"Highland’s work is excellent – timely, relevant, practical, and needed. They create actionable research and resources for developing value propositions, products, and services that younger generations will value. I highly recommend their work."
What We'll Cover
The Challenge
Explore the macro trends behind young professionals' dwindling engagement with professional associations from generational researchers on Gen Z and Millennial behaviors and trends.
Clarify the specific trends and challenges in your association through interactive reflection, sharing and discussion with other leaders and teams.
"Bridge" Experiences
Learn the principles behind successfully retaining early career professionals and unpack examples of how various associations have significant increased retention through "bridge" experiences that guide early career members to both join and stay.
Understanding What Young Professionals Need
Dive into the key principles of uncovering the unmet and under-met needs of young professionals in your industry using the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework, created by Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School.
Then engage in real-time interviews with young professionals, applying a JTBD method to identify needs throughout their journey from student to early career professional.
Creating New Value Propositions and Products with Young Professionals
Gain reliable methods for rapidly co-creating and evaluating value propositions and new products and services with young professionals using techniques from the world of innovation.
Then engage in real-time interviews with young professionals, applying co-creation and rapid feedback techniques to shape value propositions and experiences more tightly aligned to young professional's needs, context, and expectations.
Planning for the Future: Next Steps for Your Team & Organization
Blending practical planning with collaboration and creativity, we'll reflect and share on learning and insights from The Future of Membership cohort
You and your team will be able to create concrete plans to advance the capability and commitment of your organization to reimagine membership for young professionals, while receiving advice and feedback from other leaders and Highland's principals.
Cost & details
$4,500 per organization for a team of up to four participants. Teams typically include leaders of membership and marketing functions. We provide:
- All sessions
- All cohort materials
- Remote session recordings
- Highland's guides for Jobs To Be Done research and co-creation with young professionals
