The Future of Membership
A cohort experience for association leaders to reimagine membership for young professionals.
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."
Purpose and goals
Equip
- Clarify macro trends and unique circumstances
- Sharpen your point of view
- Explore proven methods from innovation for breaking down and solving complex challenges
Inspire
- Learn from leading Millennial & GenZ researchers
- Engage with leaders of membership orgs succeeding with young professionals
Connect
- Dialogue with other forward-thinking, specialized leaders of membership in professional associations
- Tap into the learnings, ideas, and successes of others
Schedule
Launch
Participants and their teams will meet other leaders and engage in highly interactive reflection, sharing, and discussions to frame the challenge, explore its complexity, share past attempts and current efforts across organizations, and set the foundation for the weeks to come.
We'll 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. We'll also explore 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.
All cohort members share a relaxed dinner at Roanoke in Chicago on Wednesday evening.
Macro Trends
Explore the macro trends behind young professionals' dwindling engagement with professional associations from generational researchers on Gen Z and Millennial behaviors and trends.
Understanding What Young Professionals Need
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
Engage in real-time sessions with young professionals, applying co-creation and rapid feedback techniques to shape value propositions and services 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
$9,500 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
Applications are evaluated and accepted based on the association's industry, participating leaders, and membership goals.
