I flesh the idea out better in a previous post of mine on Acronym.

I completely agree with you. Over time I have worked with a number of organizations who insist I work with ASAE to get them benchmarking information on retention rates or recruitment response rates or a myriad of other stats that are kept and available. I always suggest that benchmarking against “industry standards” really does not tell them much. What they really need to be concerned about is figuring out ways to do better than they are today. In figuring out how to do that they need to truly understand their members, their industry, etc. and the potential challenges that may limit their ability or inability to retain their members.

I do get looked at kind of sidewise some times when I say this as I think some BOD members and even association staff think it is a cop out when I say the key to good performance in retention is to always try to do better than you have done in the past.

Also, the association’s mission needs to be taken into account. If the market we serve is served by dozens of other associations, then retention will likely be lower, but we also have to consider whether or not we should be trying to serve that whole market, if there are so many others providing similar services.