What good are associations? Can anyone tell me? In quantifiable terms, what purpose do they serve? What good do they provide?
According to Associations Matter they provide employment (more than 1 million jobs pre-recession) and they generate revenue ($33 billion pre-recession). But only anecdotally does that study get to what they stand for, what difference they make.
A 10-year-old study shows that democracy is strengthened when people belong to certain types of associations. Associations that are open, whose members belong to more than one association tend to be better for democracy. Those that are closed—trade unions are specifically singled out—breed insularity and isolation and are, therefore, bad for democracy.
ASAE has the Associations Make a Better World award which:
- recognizes outstanding association programs, projects and activities that make a significant contribution to societies and economies worldwide.
- honors associations that are making an impact outside the USA.
- encourages programs that cross national borders.
The honorees are largely philanthropic in nature, organized around good works in the first place. There is usually a token winner or two like the Illinois Bankers Association that won last year for a Guide to Basic Banking that member banks could provide to customers.
But what about the others? The ones that just rabbit along setting standards for, say, how a cell phone is made or how to fix a gas leak in my furnace or how much heat a light bulb should give off, whether there’s lead in paint, whether someone needs a license to put a new roof on my house, whether cars dealers should be held to an ethical code of conduct.
This stuff isn’t always sexy but it pays association bills, involves scores of volunteers and, in a very real sense, makes the world a better place. You might not know that circuit boards can have the measles but it matters to how they perform and, if they don’t, an awful lot of things won’t work properly.
One of the biggest reasons members join an association and will participate in its programs is to make a difference. Making a difference could be finding a cure for AIDS but more likely it is helping educate bank customers or sitting in long, dry meetings about some little thing that ultimately will make cars safer or the workplace better.
Associations matter and not just because they feed millions of dollars a year into the events industry. Maybe they should quit marketing themselves based on how important they are to the economy and start talking about the difference they make in the world.
