For many associations, the “survival mode” during the pandemic has given way to recovery and, with it, the inevitable question posed by boards: How do we start growing revenue again?

In 2022, the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (VPPPA) board asked me how long it had been since we increased member dues. The answer came as a shock to everyone in the room: We honestly weren’t sure.

That’s because there wasn’t a record of any structural changes to VPPPA’s dues model in our 20-plus years of data—which meant members had most likely been paying the same dues amount since before the iPhone was invented.

Gathering Data

VPPPA staff compiled data to help the board make an informed decision whether to proceed with a dues increase. This included dues revenue year-over-year for the previous 10 years, broken down by membership category, compared to expenses over the same period. This helped the board visualize the disparity between membership revenue growth (stagnant) and expenses (growing).

Staff also prepared data outlining how membership benefits evolved over the same period. This “soft” data allowed the board to begin to understand the messaging aspect of any dues increase.

Another big change: Instead of saying “membership dues,” we started using “membership investment.”

Communicating the Increase

In January 2023, the VPPPA board voted to increase the annual membership investment 10 percent beginning at the start of the association’s fiscal year—July 1. Plenty of time to develop the communications and implementation plans, right?

In our case, it was enough time because VPPPA staff were already in the first phase of membership dues restructuring.

At its core, membership restructuring can be segmented into three phases:

• Preparation. Understanding (and justifying) the need for a dues increase and defining the processes (e.g., governance, data-gathering, staff and volunteer teams) involved.
• Development. Creating the structure and implementation/communications plan, as well as gathering data and feedback on proposed changes from members and nonmembers.
• Implementation and evaluation. Deploying the communications and marketing plans leading up to implementation and then evaluating the results in real-time to adjust messaging as needed.

VPPPA staff, having already started the process of what an increase would look like and its effect on membership numbers and revenue, had sketched out the bones of a communications plan and now began filling in the blanks—the “why” behind the board’s decision.

To effectively communicate the price increase, we needed to explain what members would get for shelling out more dollars. That meant identifying—and determining the perceived value—of every benefit.

Doing this created the framework for a six-week email and social media drip campaign outlining each benefit and their dollar value, culminating in a final message prior to implementation summarizing the benefits and discounts available as part of the membership investment.

In the final message, we announced that the member investment would increase starting July 1 to continue advancing health and safety excellence (part of VPPPA’s mission statement).

To date, we’ve received no negative feedback. In fact, renewal rates are on par with previous years. At our annual conference in September, several members remarked that they were previously unaware of the benefits that came with their membership investment and—more importantly—that those benefits extended to each employee at their site.

Messaging Matters

For any price increase, the key is to explain the reason behind the change. For VPPPA, that meant educating members about the available benefits because of their investment—benefits that, if maximized, could result in a net positive return on their membership investment.

Give members the information to justify the increase and redefine your terminology to change member’s mindset from membership as a cost to membership as an investment in their future. After all, isn’t that what association membership is truly about?