Matrix Group International

Author: Joanna Pineda

  • Breaking Barriers, Building Futures: Reflections on Winning the AWTC Badass Award

    Breaking Barriers, Building Futures: Reflections on Winning the AWTC Badass Award

    A couple of months ago, I received a late night phone call from my friend Gretchen Steenstra, who is also a Director at DelCor Technology Solutions and Board member of the Association Women Technology Champions (AWTC). Gretchen couldn’t contain herself. She said that the AWTC Board had decided to create a one-time Badass Awards and award it to four women founders and CEOS in the industry. And I was one of them.

    Me? A badass? I was honored, humbled, and, honestly, a little floored.

    The AWTC Badass Award is a special recognition for trailblazing leaders who have founded companies, shaped the industry, and shown resilience, adaptability, and perseverance in building and sustaining their companies. I found myself reflecting on my own journey, my incredible team at Matrix Group, and the countless women who have paved the way in technology, like my fellow Badass Award winners Lisa Rau, Founder of Fiota; Loretta Deluca, CEO of DelCor Technology Solutions; and Katie Atkinson, President & Cofounder of Results Direct.

    Building a Company, Breaking Barriers

    When I founded Matrix Group over 25 years ago, I wasn’t thinking about being a pioneer or making history. I simply saw a need. Associations and nonprofits were struggling to navigate the digital age, a lot of the available web tech was ugly and hard to use, and I believed a company that had deep tech capabilities AND a design sensibility could make a real impact. So, I started a company, built a team, and got to work.

    What I didn’t realize at the time was just how few women were running tech companies. And, as any woman in tech will tell you, there are moments when you feel like you have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. I remember attending meetings where all eyes would instinctively turn to my male colleagues when the technical questions started flying. I learned to hold my ground, get techie enough to to speak with authority, and, most importantly, surround myself with people who believed in my capabilities and vision. 

    Women in Tech: We’re Here, and We’re Leading

    Back in 1999, women made up only a fraction of the tech industry’s leadership and staff. The numbers have improved, but we still have work to do. And yet, when I look around, I see brilliant women serving in IT leadership roles and leading tech companies! I’m grateful to the now defunct DC Web Women for being one of the first communities to train and nurture women in tech. I hired many of my first staff through DCWW because while Matrix Group was small and new, the community embraced me and other women founders trying to break into the field.

    Today, AWTC is training and nurturing the next generation of tech leaders in the association space, and educating non-techies to be sophisticated and discerning users of technology. All while creating a welcoming and supporting community. When I found AWTC, I realized it was the community I didn’t even realize I craved and needed.

    Women in tech aren’t waiting for permission. We’re building, innovating, and making space for the voices that come after us. And let’s be clear: this isn’t just about gender equity. It’s about better business, smarter technology, and stronger organizations. Diversity drives innovation. When we have different perspectives at the table, we create better solutions.

    The Work Continues

    Winning the AWTC Badass Award is a deeply meaningful honor, but I don’t see it as an endpoint. It’s a reminder of why I do what I do. It’s a call to keep pushing boundaries, to continue mentoring and lifting up others, and to ensure that the tech world—especially in the association space—becomes more inclusive, innovative, and impactful.

    To every woman navigating this industry: keep going. Keep raising your hand, taking up space, and breaking barriers. And to the men who champion women in tech: keep showing up, advocating, and making room at the table.

    We’re all in this together. And we’re just getting started.

  • The Looming Membership Cliff: What Associations Can and Should Be Doing

    The Looming Membership Cliff: What Associations Can and Should Be Doing

    Over the last year, I noticed an alarming trend popping up in my interviews with CEOs on my podcast, Associations Thrive. CEOs in the healthcare space were worried about nurses and technicians leaving the industry. Michael DiFrisco, Executive Director of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, surveyed members and found that 52% of accredited members were planning to retire in the next five years. Kelli Baxter, then Executive Director of the American Translators Association, surveyed members and found that 62% of members were close to retirement! I could go on and on.

    I realized that many (granted, not all) associations are facing a membership cliff in the coming years. And this cliff is not just a distant concern – it’s here. What’s contributing to this cliff and what are associations doing to combat this cliff?

    To explore this more, I hosted a webinar through UST Education on the membership cliff. I was joined by Michael DiFrisco of AACD, and Tracey Moorhead, CEO of the American Association of Post-Acute Care Nursing. Here’s what we learned:

    Demographic Shifts are Accelerating

    Demographics are playing a significant role in shaping membership trends. These shifts mean fewer professionals are entering industries and, by extension, associations.

    • Baby Boomers retiring: With this generation leaving the workforce in record numbers, their participation in associations is waning.
    • Gen X retiring earlier: The pandemic has prompted some Gen Xers to exit the workforce sooner than expected.
    • Fewer younger professionals: Low birth rates and political resistance to immigration have created a smaller pipeline of potential members.

    Membership Models Are Under Strain

    The traditional membership model is facing scrutiny. There’s a lot of hand-wringing about Millennials and Gen Zers who are not “joiners.”

    • Low student-to-professional conversion: Many associations struggle to transition discounted or student members to full membership.
    • Perceived value gap: Younger professionals often question the ROI of membership, believing they can access similar resources online for free.
    • Competition from for-profit offerings: Private companies are creating compelling, alternative benefits tailored to niche needs.
    • A la carte preferences: Members are gravitating toward customizable and flexible benefits rather than one-size-fits-all membership models.

    The Private Equity Impact

    Private equity is reshaping industries, often at the expense of associations. This trend surprised me the most. Once private equity was mentioned during the webinar, the chat lit up. It seems private equity is impacting industries in a HUGE way.

    • Reduced memberships: Mergers and acquisitions result in fewer independent companies, shrinking the pool of potential members.
    • Less investment in associations: Private equity firms frequently provide internal training, certifications, and resources, diminishing the perceived need for association offerings.
    • Staff reductions: When private equity acquires firms, workforce cuts often follow, reducing the number of individual members.

    Strategies for Mitigating the Membership Cliff

    So how are associations addressing membership challenges and declines? We had nearly 100 people in the webinar and the chat was going crazy with insights and comments! Many execs realized that they are not alone in facing a looming cliff, many realized the need to survey their members about demographic trends, and many shared the strategies they’re exploring and executing. Here are my notes from the chat:

    1. Associations Are Learning to Make Data-Driven Decisions

    • Analyze demographic and membership trends.
    • Share insights with boards and leadership to align strategies.
    • Monitor competition and member needs to stay ahead.
    2. Associations Are Experimenting with New and Different Membership Models
    • Experiment with subscription-based or incremental pricing.
    • Pilot “free membership with paid events” models to attract new participants.
    • Offer flexible, tiered options tailored to varying member needs.
    3. Associations are Refining Their Value Proposition, Especially to Different Audiences
    • Highlight exclusive benefits like certifications, networking, and education.
    • Craft offerings that resonate with different demographics—young professionals, mid-career changers, or retirees.
    4. Associations are Connecting Members to Deepen Engagement
    • Launch mentorship programs to bridge generations and foster loyalty.
    • Invest in localized and hybrid networking opportunities to meet members where they are.
    5. Associations are Building Strategic Partnerships
    • Collaborate with private equity firms to underscore the value of associations.
    • Partner with universities, corporations, and other nonprofits to develop pipelines for new members.
    • Co-develop educational events and certifications with industry leaders.

    Facing the Future with Confidence

    The membership cliff may be imminent, but it’s not inevitable. Associations have the opportunity to adapt, innovate, and reassert their value. How are you navigating the membership cliff? What strategies is your organization exploring to safeguard its future? 

  • How Matrix Group Chose an AI Note Taker App

    How Matrix Group Chose an AI Note Taker App

    It’s rare to be in a Zoom or Teams meeting these days that doesn’t have an AI note taker in the room. Sometimes, there are dueling note takers. Well here at Matrix Group, we have standardized on Fathom. For now. Here’s how we made the decision:

    Note Taking is Hard

    My Directors, Project Managers and I are in a LOT of meetings. And for every meeting, someone is tasked with taking notes. We take note taking very seriously at Matrix Group. I like to say that “she who takes notes, writes history.” And it’s true. If there’s ever a question about a discussion or a decision, we go back to the notes. Yes, today, we can go back to the recording, but that’s time-consuming and we don’t always keep the video or audio recording of a meeting.

    Note taking is so important that we train our managers on how to take effective notes. We cover things like: how to format your notes, when to document the details and when it’s okay to summarize, how to capture all of the next steps.

    The problem is, note taking is hard. You need to be a fast typist and you need to be accurate. After each meeting, you need to clean up your notes, send them out, and then parse the notes into tasks for team members. If a Project Manager is in back to back meetings, it could be a day or two before the notes go out. We decided there had to be a better way.

    Putting AI Note Takers to the Test

    Over a couple of months, anyone who was interested in trialing AI note takers took part in a test. We researched a bunch of note taking apps, assigned them to people, and told them to try them out. We asked them to:

    • Check the accuracy of the time stamps
    • Check the accuracy of the transcript
    • Check the accuracy of the notes
    • Explore the types of note formats available, e.g., summary, detailed, etc.
    • Check for the ease of turning on and off

    We tested a bunch of apps, including Fireflies, Otter, Tactiq, ChatGPT, and Fathom.

    We Chose Fathom

    After a lot of testing, we chose Fathom for the following reasons:

    • We carefully reviewed the Terms of Use and were satisfied that client confidential data that might get discussed during a meeting would not go toward training a public LLM (large language model).
    • The free version gave us all the functionality we needed.
    • The notes are terrific, especially the summaries of meetings that wind around and come back to topics.
    • The transcript is accurate.
    • Fathom largely ignores the irrelevant chitchat at the start of each meeting.
    • We liked the flexibility that Fathom offered. We could have Fathom always join, join only when requested, start and stop recordings, and connect to our calendar.

    Yes, we chose Fathom BUT we are constantly testing out different tools. There are new AI note taking tools that pop up every day and while we’re not going to jump at the slightest chance, we are monitoring the landscape. If a better tool comes along, we will make the switch.

    Our experience with Fathom by and large has been terrific. Project Managers report being able to get the notes out to clients much faster. Aside from one weird day when a set of notes, instead of talking about a website redesign, discussed the Three Little Pigs. Who knows? Maybe Fathom was reading some fairy tales over lunch one day. The next meeting was fine.

    In the next blog post, I’ll talk about HOW we are being intentional with our use of Fathom, training Fathom AND training ourselves to work better with our AI note taking tool.

    How about you? Is your organization using an AI note taking tool? What has been your experience? Why did you pick that tool?

  • MatrixMaxx 24.1 Release is Full of Visualizations and Dashboard Enhancements

    MatrixMaxx 24.1 Release is Full of Visualizations and Dashboard Enhancements

    BIG changes are here with the release of version 24.1 of MatrixMaxx™, a leading Association Management System (AMS) that helps trade associations and professional societies manage their organizations better, have great member journeys, and be higher performing through data.

    The past several releases have focused primarily on under-the-hood optimizations and updates, but 24.1 brings a cornucopia of tantalizing visual and organizational improvements to the MatrixMaxx™ staff interface. Clients requested nearly every feature in this release, adding up to almost 80 enhancements to MatrixMaxx™. There are more changes than we can cover in one blog post, but we would love to highlight some of our favorites. From dashboard customizations and brand-new widgets to an overhaul of the graphing system, there is plenty to be excited about!

    Gone are the days of having to cram all of your desired widgets onto just the ‘MyMatrixMaxx’ home page. Clients are now able to customize every dashboard landing page, greatly improving the usefulness and utilization of each module’s dashboard area. Each dashboard can be tailored to help measure what is important to your association, and relevant to your memberships. In addition to the improvements to the main module-level dashboards, we have also revamped the look and feel of critical transactional dashboards to make them more user-friendly and visually appealing. Staff views of Meetings, Funds, Sponsorships, and Products have been transformed, bringing a sleek look with expanded functionality.

    In addition to better-looking dashboard elements, there is more to choose from, including three hot new widgets for Membership Churn, Tenure, and Budget. These highly visual dashboard elements will give staff a new perspective on membership data and trends. Membership Churn, in particular, charts members lost over a specific time period, providing a crucial metric alongside membership retention. Charting Churn to measure membership turnover offers a high-impact way to see how well your retention efforts are working.

    The visual upgrades continue in the Advocacy module, with a brand-new map of membership by congressional district. This new Advocacy dashboard offers an updated, virtual office spin on the ‘push pin map’ that used to hang on the walls of many GR offices. This new map is transformative for organizations that lobby and need to know their constituent footprint at a glance.

    The new and improved visualization features across MatrixMaxx™ are powered by an all-new, modern library. After significant research, we are pleased to have chosen and implemented HighCharts as our new visualization engine and chart generator, bringing major upgraded benefits to the interface. First and foremost, the new graphs and charts have a clean aesthetic and include modern features, such as datapoint-tooltips and hover-highlights. Second, through the pervasive hamburger menu, HighCharts graphs equip clients with a variety of fingertip options, including full-screen mode, print versions, and a variety of export formats.

    Not to be left behind, the CRM module has a brand-new feature as well. The “My Accounts” function allows members to be assigned to a staff account manager(s) and offers both a ‘My Account’ report as well as a “Search for Account Managers” that allows other staff to review accounts outside of their own list.

    MatrixMaxx 24.1 has so many more features! Please take a few moments to read the full patch notes in the newly redesigned Support Center and learn about all of them. (And if you are new to MatrixMaxx, be sure to check out the MatrixMaxx 101 recommended staff curriculum.)

    Remember…  we host a free, monthly Q&A session where our Client Success Manager will review recent upgrades AND answer questions about anything related to MatrixMaxx. Check out our upcoming Events calendar and register today! In June, not only are we hosting our standard Q&A, but also a special Introduction Training tailored specifically for new staff.

    And if YOU are a client of ours and have a suggestion for a new feature that you think should be in MatrixMaxx, log into the Matrix Group extranet and send us MatrixMaxx Enhancement request!

  • Celebrating 25 Years of Innovation and Impact: Reflecting on Our Journey

    Celebrating 25 Years of Innovation and Impact: Reflecting on Our Journey

    Matrix Group is officially 25 years old today. I say “officially” because May 1 is the date on our incorporation papers, but the real date is April 22, when I opened up shop in shared office space in Georgetown, Washington, DC. If you want to hear stories about when, why and how I started the company, listen to this week’s episode of Associations Thrive. For a change, Leah Monica, Director of Marketing at Matrix Group, interviewed me about my personal journey and the journey of Matrix Group.

    Although I love to take photos and videos, I’m not actually one to spend a lot of time looking back. If you want to read about the first 10 years at Matrix Group, here’s a blog post I wrote back in 2009! I’m not someone who looks to the far future, either. I’ve got my eyes on the next three years and boy do I expect a lot of change, challenges, and fun!

    Reinventing Matrix Group – Again

    I told my staff that we’re in a period of reinvention – again. Why? Because post-pandemic, I know that we can’t go back to offering our clients the same old services, in the same old way. Doing THAT would be the fastest way to planned obsolescence. So many of our clients are revisiting their strategic plans, most are upending their conferences, some are rethinking their member types, and so many are tweaking their governance. 

    So how do we stay relevant and continue to partner with our clients to create new services and amazing journeys for their members?

    The answer, of course, is that we need to reinvent Matrix Group – again. WHO we serve isn’t changing – we’re still committed and focused on the association and nonprofit community. HOW we do our work hasn’t changed either – we’re still committed to client education, we’re still fanatic about delighting our clients, we still like to go deep with our clients, and we work hard to keep the same team working with clients over time and across projects. 

    The WHAT of our work has changed, is changing, will always change. When NABTU (North America’s Building Trades Unions) came to use to help them better manage the process of contractors becoming signatory to their agreements and reporting work hours, we used a no-code/low code platform so that NABTU’s tech debt burden would be much lighter in the future and they would never be on an “old” version of their software. When SQFI (the Safe Quality Food Institute) came to us to redesign and help them do business better on a global scale, we integrated AWS Translate into their CMS so that the new website is available in 9 languages, visitors can search in 9 languages AND the site is indexed by Google in 9 languages.

    We are developing a lot of experience and fluency with AWS services, including their AI services, and their suite of cloud services. All of this new work is prompting new offerings by Matrix Group, necessitating new training for my staff, and creating a need for new skills sets and new positions at the company. I bet that by the end of 2026, I won’t recognize the company in terms of WHAT we offer our clients, even if the WHY, WHO and HOW remain the same.

    Work 4.0

    When I sent everyone home in March 2020, we already had a well-defined and well supported remote work policy. In fact, when we moved to our new office space in July 2019, Maki Kato, the Matrix Group CTO, declared that the new office would not have a server room and everything had to move to the cloud. So when the pandemic hit, we were well prepared technology-wise.

    But sending everyone home and holding regular Zoom meetings does not make a culture. For the past few years, we’ve had an ongoing conversation at Matrix Group about what Work 4.0 looks like. With our office space lease expiring in March of 2025, we continue to ask ourselves questions like, “How do we make sure Matrix Group values and culture stay consistent and strong? If we don’t have an office in Arlington, VA, where will we be based? When and how will we gather in person?”

    I’m proud of the active and intentional culture that we’ve created at Matrix Group. How have we done this?

    • Through the company’s fundamentals that serve as our guiding principles. Every meeting opens with a fundamental and we work to integrate this code of conduct into everything we do. My favorite fundamentals are:
      • Do or do not. There is no try.
      • If we don’t hear joy in a client’s voice, our job is not done.
      • Don’t let your boss make a mistake.
      • Don’t let your client make a mistake.
      • Be curious.
      • Be coachable.
      • Within Matrix Group, assume good intentions.
    • We encourage in person interactions, but they’re optional. I have not mandated a return to office because there just isn’t an appetite on the part of the staff to be back in the office, even part-time. So directors and managers actively reach out to staff via Slack and email, and we devote the start of every meeting to socializing and sharing.
    • We do a lot of co-working. One of my favorite things when we were all still mostly in the office was co-working. If the biz dev team was crashing on a proposal, or a services team was launching a new website, we would gather in a conference room or the War Room (the War Room was a large, open area that had couches, standing desks, a large screen and lots of power). Today, we co-work by meeting in a Google Meet to literally work side by side with another person, sometimes collaborating on the same document or slides, and sometimes just co-working to be together, but not necessarily working on the same project.
    • I provide my managers with communications skills training. Effective written and verbal communications are even more important when most of your interactions are done over Zoom. How do you remind someone gently that something is due? How do you have a fierce conversation with someone over Zoom? Just how often should you be checking in with your team?

    25-Year Celebrations

    The pandemic changed how and when we gather. In addition, not only did staff scatter to other parts of the country, we have hired from around the country. All of this means that a big, in person party would be really complicated. So how are we celebrating?

    • Once a month, I’ll be interviewing association CEOs on our Associations Thrive podcast about how their profession or industry is changing, and how their associations are adapting to these changes.
    • I’m hosting a couple of staff lunches at the office this month, complete with amazing Asian food. 
    • My leadership team has made a commitment to try and see everyone on the team this year!
    • Before our lease ends, we are going to do a huge, blowout party at the office!

    Full of Gratitude

    As I reflect on 25 years of being in business, I am filled with gratitude. Gratitude for:

    • My amazing staff, both present and past.
    • Our wonderful clients, for their confidence in us, and for giving us opportunities to do great work and help them achieve their missions and change the world.
    • My loving and supportive husband, sons, and other family members. I don’t think I could have done what I’ve done, and gone out into the world with my message and services, if I didn’t have their support back home.

    To help me reflect on everything I have in my life, and everything I am grateful for, my husband and I are reading The Gratitude Diaries. Howard Pearl, CEO of CARS, was on my podcast a couple of months ago. He shared with me that he makes every employee read this book. I took inspiration from his words and I’m so glad I did!

    Thanks to everyone who’s been part of my personal journey and the journey of Matrix Group! Be safe, be well.

  • How to Make Your AMS a Revenue Generator, not a Cost Center

    How to Make Your AMS a Revenue Generator, not a Cost Center

    I attend a lot of webinars and conferences about non-dues revenue, including Non Dues-A-Palooza. At all of these events, there are presentations and discussions about new products and new partnerships that associations can invest in and offer to their members.

    I realized recently that hardly anyone is talking about AMS (association management system) as a revenue generator; this makes no sense to me! Yes, nearly every association uses their AMS to manage and process dues payments. But associations also use their AMS to track event registrations, purchases, advertising, subscriptions, and sponsorships. So why isn’t your AMS part of YOUR association’s non-dues revenue strategy?

    Historically, associations view their AMS as merely a cost center: technology with a fancy price tag to track what the association and members are doing. This is a mistake. We assume that the market for a product or service is influenced by marketing alone, i.e., once a member or customer gets past the marketing email or landing page to convert, the software will take care of the rest and it’s marketing moving the needle. 

    In my experience, however, a great online store will increase sales and therefore revenue. A user-friendly event registration system will encourage more registrations. Why? Because while there are highly motivated customers who will manage to get past even the crappiest of online ordering systems, a lot of customers will abandon when they encounter friction (e.g., confusing directions, bad login page). Sure, they have every intention of coming back or calling the association, but a percentage abandons for good. Does this audience represent an additional 1%, 10% or 20% of what could be your total sales? Hard to know.

    If your association or nonprofit is looking to increase non-dues revenue, be sure to include someone from the AMS team and ask these questions:

    • Conduct a usability study. How easy or hard is it to actually complete a transaction? Where are the friction points?
    • Is your product or service optimized for search, meaning can I find your product through Google or your site search?
    • Does your AMS have an abandon report that tells you who started to convert but abandoned?
    • Are you tracking abandons in Google Analytics?
    • Is someone from the AMS team included in discussions about revenue generation at your organization?
    • Can you make e-commerce on your website more like Amazon with its recommendations and use of purchasing?
    • Can you look at previous purchasers, create demographic profiles and market to others like them?

    Once you have some answers, work with your team and/or digital partner to make your customer journeys better. Track progress, celebrate results. Keep tweaking. And keep including the AMS in all discussions about non-dues revenue! 


    Looking for an Association Management System packed with features to help you increase membership, increase revenue, and become more high-performing? We’d love to show you MatrixMaxx, Matrix Group’s AMS. Request a Demo today!

  • The End of Expertise and How Associations Must Adapt

    The End of Expertise and How Associations Must Adapt

    Summary: Trust in higher education, media, and other institutions is at historic lows, while confidence in peers and social media is rising. For associations, this means members are seeking support to protect their credibility and strengthen public trust. This post looks at the data behind declining trust, its impact on associations, and practical ways associations can help members stay relevant and respected.

    “Trust in companies from global companies is in decline, worry over societal threats and establishment leaders misleading us is growing, while peers are as trusted as scientists for information on new innovations.”  – 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer

    A couple of weeks ago, I facilitated a discussion through UST Education about trust and associations with Melanie Gottlieb, CEO of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) and Tara Puckey, Executive Director of the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA). Higher education and the media have been hard hit with trust issues. Americans today question the value of a college degree and mistrust the so-called “ivory tower” experts. They also distrust the media, calling bias and questioning facts. Here are a few statistics that we shared:

    • 27% of Americans say they have not too much or no confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interest (Pew Research)
    • 39% of Americans, a record-high, say they don’t trust the media at all. (Gallup)
    • 50% of Americans under age 30 have some or a lot of trust in the information they get from social media, just under the 56% who say the same about news outlets. (Pew Research)

    Here are some of the discussion points from the webinar, which was really more of a discussion. These insights came from Melanie and Tara, along with the nearly 100 people who attended and lit up the chat:

    From Melanie: How declining trust is affecting higher education

    • 2023 Gallup data shows that public trust in higher education has dropped 20 points over the last 8 years to a historic low of only 36% having confidence in higher education. This translates into the negative national narrative that college isn’t worth it. At a time when higher education is facing public funding cuts, changing demographics and a challenging student debt environment, institutions are facing an uphill battle to sustain enrollments and stay relevant. 

    From Tara: How declining trust is affecting the media

    • Declining trust is something that isn’t new within the journalism landscape; we’ve been dealing with it for decades. Unfortunately, it continues to rise, spreading from national news down to the local level at an alarming rate. The addition of AI and other technologies to rapidly deploy misinformation and disinformation creates a new layer of complexity that newsrooms around the country are grappling with. The good news is that smart people are working to identify ways that newsrooms and individual journalists can stem the decline and build trust within their communities. 

    How is declining trust affecting your industry or profession?

    • Many attendees expressed surprise over the trust statistics that we shared.
    • Many association execs expressed the belief that declining trust is affecting their industry, including execs from higher education, medicine, public health, foreign affairs, media, real estate, government, technology, science, veterinary medicine, and libraries.
    • A few execs said their industries are not affected, including tourism and agriculture.
    • Members report having to work doubly and triply hard to shore up their credibility.

    How is declining trust affecting your association?

    • Declining trust is leading members to leave the profession.
    • Members are increasingly distrustful of government and jaded about advocacy, leading to less engagement in advocacy and government affairs.
    • Members are turning to their associations to help them shore up their credibility and address increasing public distrust of their industry or profession.
    • Members are asking for resources they can use to bring people together and enhance trust within their communities.
    • One association said their communications strategy has evolved to include: government relations, public relations, and consumer relations.
    • Meetings and events are becoming increasingly politicized, with arguments over location of conferences, and the politics of keynote speakers.
    • Declining trust and polarization is affecting national organizations’ ability to partner with their chapters.
    • When a keynote speaker at an event leans one way politically, associations are more mindful of having another speaker who leans in the other direction.
    • Social media and sound byte journalism is making it harder for associations to share balanced research, facts, and perspectives

    What are associations doing/should be doing to shore up trust in their industries?

    • Execs agreed on the importance of educating members about trust issues in their field.
    • Some associations are partnering with peer organizations to push out messages and expand their reach. 
    • Some execs recommended more explicit communications about their professional code of conduct guidelines or code of ethics to increase public trust of their members.
    • Organizations are having to remind members that discourse should always be civil and open-minded. 
    • Many execs say you always need to circle back to your mission.
    • The American College Health Association (ACHA) has developed a trust toolkit for its members.
    • The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) holds a three-day conference + ongoing training for members about advocacy and communicating the value of the profession, members and association to different audiences, called the STR Program.
    • Some medical associations are developing patient resources that have been double- and triple-vetted and that members can share with patients, building up the members’ credibility and authority.
    • Some associations are doing more public education and public outreach, eliminating the jargon and focusing on the WHY.
    • One exec expressed interest in resources to share with our members to teach them how to have conversations about controversial topics.
    • Many execs reinforced the idea that communications should be clear and transparent.
    • Some associations are providing more training for Board members and other leaders to be effective spokespersons for their industries.

    Are you having conversations within your association about declining trust, credibility and authority?

    • Most associations said not yet, but after the webinar, they are planning to start discussions with their Boards and staff.
    • One association conducts an annual brand tracker; trust in the association is one of the metrics.

    The key takeaways from this discussion are:

    1. Start conversations at the staff, leadership, and Board levels.
    2. Consider: can you/should you offer tools and resources to help your members address trust issues with their stakeholders?
    3. Educate your members to be discerning consumers of information: webinars, blog posts, podcasts.
    4. Track trends in your industry.
    5. Collaborate with other associations in your field.

    More Resources

    I had been thinking about trust and associations for some time now and I am so grateful to Melanie and Tara for jump-starting the conversation with me, and thrilled at the insightful comments from all of the attendees. Here are more resources as your organization embarks on your trust journey:

    This topic was so popular, that I hosted a second session on “The End of Expertise and How Associations Must Adapt” with UST Education in July 2024, and was joined by:

    • Lindsay Currie, Executive Officer, Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)
    • Matthew Hughes, President & CEO, World Affairs Council of America
    • Tara Puckey, Executive Director, The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA)

    Watch the second session here!

  • New Year’s Resolutions For Your Website in 2024

    New Year’s Resolutions For Your Website in 2024

    It’s the New Year and all of us are bubbling over with resolutions. So many of us resolve to exercise more, be kinder, spend more time with family, and so on. What about our websites? Shouldn’t we have resolutions for making our websites, email, and social media accounts better?

    I am a big fan of Dan Pink, author of the best-selling books Drive, When, The Power of Regret, and so many others. He also has a video podcast that he calls the Pinkcast. Each podcast is only 2-3 minutes long and they’re full of amazing insights and advice. In this Pinkcast, he talks about how to make New Year’s resolutions like a pro. The process includes making a list of your regrets, picking the one thing that bugs you the most, and then focusing on just that in the new year.

    What Are Your Website Regrets?


    Getting back to your website, what are your regrets about your website from the last year? Here is what I hear from clients. They wish:

    • They blogged more often
    • They had better visuals on their website
    • They had cleaned up their website by deleting the old stuff and making sure what was left was current and fresh
    • Their website was better optimized for mobile
    • They had a better handle on their website analytics and what it means for their organization
    • Their content was better optimized for Google
    • Their site search was better
    • Their website did a better job of storytelling
    • Their join or registration process was easier
    • Their website templates were more flexible

    This is a pretty long list of regrets. Each of the items above is important and worth focusing on. BUT if you focus on all of them, it will be sometime before you see progress. AND not making any progress on your goals and resolutions early in the year could set you up for another year of regrets. So how and where do you start? 

    Pick 1 or 2 Regrets to Focus on in 2024


    Start by picking just one of your regrets, or maybe even 2, and turn them into goals. Which one is most important that if addressed, would yield the most benefit for your organization? 

    The key here is making specific enough goals that you end up with an action plan and a timeline. 

    For example, if one of your goals is to make your organization’s join process better, your action plan might have these steps:

    • Look at Google Analytics to see what kind of traffic the join page gets and where people abandon.
    • Meet with your membership database and marketing team to map the member join process and map the journey. Where are the friction points?
    • Ask your web team, AMS team or website vendor for suggestions for making the journey better.
    • Resolve to have something, anything done, by the first quarter of 2024.
    • Monitor the results weekly.
    • Repeat until the next set of improvements will bring in only marginal benefits.

    If your goal is to clean up the dead and outdated content on your website, your action plan might look like this:

    • Ask your web manager or web vendor to create an updated inventory of all of the content on your website.
    • Look at your Google Analytics to see where traffic is going and where it’s not going.
    • Do some searches on your site. Is old content dominating the results?
    • Resolve to make some decisions about 5 types of content, eg., news, blogs, annual meeting information, etc. A decision could be: Delete all but the last three years of news, or delete all but the last two years of annual meeting information (except session handouts, which will live in a separate database).
    • Set aside 1 hour per week to do this work. If you set aside too much, it will become onerous. If you allocate less time, you won’t make enough progress.
    • Distribute the work to a team of staff and monitor your work and results monthly, including whether and how traffic and site search are improving.

    Once you’ve got one one of your regrets tackled (at least for now), tackle the next one. And so and so forth. 

    Of course, your organization could opt for a total website redesign, which would presumably help you tackle a whole lot of regrets, challenges, and issues. Barring that, however, focusing on one thing at a time will give you the mental energy to actually make a difference on that item that’s been bugging you.

    What are your biggest website regrets from last year? What “regrets” are you planning on tackling first this year? Leave a comment and let us know!


    Need some help planning, strategizing, and/or getting the right technology in place to reach your goals and clear your year of regrets? That’s our expertise! We’d love to partner with you to help your organization thrive this year – in the digital space and beyond. Get in touch and we’ll schedule a time to tackle those “regrets” together!

  • When Do Your Customer Journeys Actually Begin?

    When Do Your Customer Journeys Actually Begin?

    I have two friends who have walked the Camino del Santiago. The friends are Peter Schwartz, who is my business coach, and Gordon Bernhardt, a member of my CEO peer group. Both of them did the French route, which takes you from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. It’s a 500-mile journey that you do on foot over 30 to 35 days.

    My friend Gordon’s journey began when he walked out of his hotel room in France and started his Camino journey. He said something really interesting to me when I was talking to him about the Camino. He said, “Joanna, back in the day, if you were a pilgrim a couple of hundred years ago, your journey actually began when you walked out of your house in Germany or some other part of Europe, wherever you might have been.”

    Joanna Pineda and Gordon Bernhardt
    Joanna with Gordon and his book, Buen Camino

    This comment from Gordon got me thinking. I am in the business of helping associations and nonprofits create amazing member journeys. My company creates online shopping carts, online meeting registration forms, resource centers, etc. All of my clients are concerned with creating seamless and effective customer journeys so that their members and non-members find what they’re looking for, purchase the items they’re looking for from the store, or register to attend a conference or seminar.

    The question is: when do these customer journeys begin? Do they begin with the customer at the point of registering for a meeting or at the point of adding something to the shopping cart? Or do they begin when the customer starts with a Google search, clicks on a link in an email, or has a conversation with a friend about something that they might need?

    I believe that we all need to think of these customer journeys as starting much, much earlier. When a person ultimately registers for a conference, that attendee journey probably started days, weeks, or even months before the actual registration. It started when they had a conversation with their boss, did a Google search, or visited the website.

    When thinking about your customer journeys, ask yourself and your web team: 

    • How do people find whatever it is we’re trying to sell them or whatever it is we want them to use or do on our website? 
    • How findable is a specific product in our store on Google? 
    • How findable is a specific webinar from our site search, especially when a person doesn’t have the exact title? 
    • How findable is a specific resource on your website that perhaps was mentioned during a keynote presentation or a webinar?

    And even though you may not have complete control over the platforms they start their journey on – Google, email, social media, etc. – there are things you can do to make those touch points better. For example, to improve the journey from search to your store you can: 

    • Talk to your web team to make sure that every product in your store is actually indexable by Google. 
    • Make sure that each product has good navigation. 
    • Make sure that each product actually has a primary link URL, and each product page has a URL. 

    When we do these things, we make it easier for Google to find our products and also make it easier for the site search to find products.

    The next time you’re thinking about a product or service that your organization has to offer, think about the customer journey and when exactly those journeys begin. 

    Chances are you need to go much, much earlier in the process to make that journey better for your customers.

    Need help rethinking and retooling your member journeys? Let’s talk! We’d love to help.

  • Leadership Lessons from the Martial Arts

    Leadership Lessons from the Martial Arts

    Google for leadership lessons from the martial arts and you’ll get a jillion posts. Most of them focus on skills you’ll develop from practicing the martial arts. Skills like focus, discipline, respect, confidence, flexibility, etc.

    I recently did a webinar for UST Education on just this topic BUT my leadership lessons are ones I learned from my master, Master Seung Hum Yun at Be Ryong Martial Arts in Alexandria, VA. These leadership lessons are gleaned more from HOW Master Yun runs his studio, than from the practice of taekwondo and hapkido (both martials arts I practice). Here are highlights from my webinar.

    Sometimes, you need to trade your black belt for a white belt.

    A black belt is someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery of a specific subject, process or technology. We may have black belts in old technology that we no longer need or should upgrade. These black belts need to be coached to become white belts again.

    Learn how to take a punch.

    When you’re fighting, a punch could be seen as a failure because you didn’t get out of the way or you didn’t block the punch. But perhaps taking the punch means you learn something new or it positions you for the next move.

    Create a professional development ladder.

    Every martial arts studio has a prescribed journey of belts. Each belt is associated with specific forms, kicks and techniques. Without worrying about titles, how are you creating professional development ladders in your organization so that your staff have targets for the skills, experiences and relationships they will develop this quarter or this year.

    Sometimes, you just have to “do something.”

    When I’m sparring tired, it’s easy to just stand there or circle my opponent without really doing anything. That’s when my master will yell at me to “do something!” Do you have projects or initiatives that are stalled? What can you do to get them moving again?

    What happens in your organization is what you allow to happen.

    My master is very clear about the behavior that he expects from every student, no exceptions allowed. He expects all of us to be respectful and encouraging, especially when someone is trying to learn something new. He calls out bad behavior and does not tolerate it. What bad behaviors are YOU allowing in your organization?

    Black belts define their own journey.

    My master tells lower belts that he will define their journey, but once a student makes black belt (remember, there are 10 degrees in most martial arts!), he expects the black belts to define their own journeys. He expects us to advocate for more training, and decide the cadence of our journeys. Do we want to get that next black belt quickly, or perhaps go at a slower pace? We decide BUT he’s always there for guidance.

    I’ve been a student of taekwondo and hapkido for over 11 years. It’s not an exaggeration to say that my time at Be Ryong has been meaningful and fulfilling.

    How about you? What’s been your martial arts journey and how have you applied lessons learned to your personal and professional lives?