Twelve signs an association has outgrown a single executive director
An association has outgrown a single executive director when its events, renewals, records and passwords depend on one person and the work that grows membership has stopped. The twelve yes-or-no questions below score that dependence. Three or more yes answers mean the board should start moving work off the director's desk.
Why it happens
Why one director stops being enough
The job grew past one person while the staff stayed at one. A generation ago a director ran the annual meeting and kept the books. The same title now covers a website, email, social media accounts, a member database, sponsor development, legislative monitoring and committee support, along with the meeting. The association added work each year and kept the staff at one.
A capable director absorbs the extra load, so the board does not see it. The director works nights and sets aside the work that has no deadline. That work includes recruiting members and sponsors and writing procedures down, and it is the work that grows an association.
The board sees events that still happen and renewals that still go out, and it reads those as health. From the boardroom, the growing list of tasks only one person knows how to do is hard to see.
The change comes quickly when it comes. A resignation or a long illness turns years of unwritten procedure into a problem the board has weeks to solve. The board learns that the passwords, the vendor relationships, the renewal timing and the registration system were all known to one person. An association usually survives this. It can lose members and sponsors that took years to win.
The director is usually the reason the arrangement lasted this long. A good director holds the work together well past the point where one person should carry it. The checklist below lets a board see the load while there is still time to move it.
Checklist
Score your association in twelve questions
Answer each one yes or no and count one point for each yes. Each yes is a warning sign, so a lower score is better.
Overload
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1
Board packets arrive the night before the meeting, or get handed out in the room.
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2
The director personally handles the bookkeeping, the event logistics, the newsletter and the member phone calls.
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3
Committee projects stop moving whenever the director is out sick or traveling.
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4
The director answered work email on their last vacation because nobody else could.
Stall
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5
Membership has been flat or slipping for three straight years.
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6
The sponsor list has the same names it had five years ago.
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7
Renewal notices went out late two years running.
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8
The association has launched no new program or member benefit in the past two years.
Risk
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9
Only the director can run registration for the annual meeting.
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10
Key passwords and vendor contacts live on one person's laptop, along with the member database.
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11
Dues billing and the annual meeting have no written procedure.
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12
The board has no plan for the week after the director resigns.
Reading the score
What to do at each score
Zero to two
The arrangement is holding. Run the list again at the same board meeting each year, because the score tends to rise when nobody is watching it.
Three to five
Move work off the director's desk and write things down. Take at least one recurring duty away from the director this quarter. Put passwords in a shared vault the officers can reach. Write a renewal calendar with dates and a step-by-step for the annual meeting, from the venue contract to close-out. Fixing things at this score costs little.
Six to eight
The association is one resignation away from a crisis. Written procedures will help, and the larger problem at this score is capacity. Evaluate added staff or full-team management this year, with a real scope in front of the board, while the director is still in the seat.
Nine or more
Act this quarter. Put a board vote on the calendar with a date, and plan as if the current arrangement has less time left than it appears to.
The two ways to add capacity
Hiring a second staff member fits when the association can fund another full salary with benefits and the work divides cleanly into two jobs. The board also has to be willing to manage two employees.
Full-team association management fits when the association needs bookkeeping, events, communications and membership covered at once without funding four hires. It also fits a board that wants coverage to continue when any one person leaves.
Either one can be right. Asking the current director to keep absorbing the growth leaves the score where it is.
Questions and answers
Questions boards ask
What is an association management company?
An association management company runs the day-to-day operations of a trade or professional association under the board's direction. Its staff and systems are shared across several associations, so each one pays for part of them. The board still sets the policy and the budget, and the company carries them out.
How is full-team management different from hiring an executive director?
An executive director is one person covering administration, events, finance, communications and membership. Full-team management assigns a person to each of those functions, with backup when someone is out or leaves. Coverage no longer depends on one hire staying healthy and staying in the job.
What happens to our identity if we hire a management firm?
The association keeps its name, logo, board, bylaws, member records and bank accounts. Members deal with the association, and the management firm works in the background as its staff. If the relationship ends, everything the association owns leaves with it.
What does association management cost?
Old Plank Group quotes association management as one flat monthly fee, after a conversation about the association's events and its membership. There is no hourly billing. A board can compare the fee with the full cost of a director, which includes salary, benefits, payroll taxes and office costs.
Old Plank Group manages trade and professional associations.
Take the twelve questions to your next board meeting and score them together. If the score says to act, we will walk the board through its options. Send a note and we answer within one business day.