It’s Time to Award Innovation in Associations

Most association awards programs are pretty ho-hum, unless, of course, you’re a nominee. ASAE and state SAE award criteria are predictable with awards recognizing association CEOs, employees and vendors who:

• demonstrate exceptional leadership qualities,
• show deep commitment to membership organizations, and
• make exceptional contributions to their associations and profession.

The recipients are usually active long-time members who have ‘paid their dues.’ Don’t get me wrong, the ASAE and SAE award recipients do deserve the recognition. But are awards like these sufficient? Why not use awards programs to inspire new ideas and practices in addition to recognizing the good work of others?

Rewarding next practices

The awards at my former association recognized and promoted cutting-edge building designs and practices. The unveiling of finalists was a big event in our industry, and not just for marketing departments. The winners and finalists exemplified the industry’s ‘next practices.’ We displayed the winning entries at our trade show and featured them in our magazine so everyone could learn from and be inspired by their work.

The association management profession is missing out on opportunities to inspire each other with our ‘next practices.’ I reviewed several SAE websites and found a few awards programs that go beyond the usual threesome, but most do not.

• The ASAE Gold Circle Awards include an award for Innovative Communications.
• The Midwest SAE’s Awards of Association Excellence recognize “outstanding achievement in innovation in association management.”
• The awards programs at the New York, Indiana and South Carolina SAEs recognize accomplishments at the program level.

Awards programs like these not only recognize members for their service but also spread good ideas. Why not celebrate associations that take risks and find new ways to meet our industry’s challenges? Consider awards for your most innovative associations, by budget size, as well as awards that recognize innovation in:

• Online community marketing and onboarding
• Online community nurturing and management
• Social media participation
• Crisis management
• Volunteer management
• Leadership training and development
• Programs for young professionals
• Employee involvement programs (for trade associations with company membership)
• Conference education
• Conference community-building
• Sponsorship, advertising and exhibit sales
• Grassroots political action
• Membership marketing and membership retention or ‘touch’ programs
• Partnership programs

Awards programs present an opportunity to bring in new member talent to help with criteria-setting and judging. New online collaboration tools enable member participation from afar.

Put the power of word-of-mouth marketing and social media to work in reaching potential entrants. Although you may rely on nominations for your traditional awards for professionals, encourage members to share their association’s successes by submitting award entries.

Sharing big and little ideas

Member recognition is only one benefit of a strong awards program. A more powerful and lasting benefit is the knowledge shared. Each award entry is a potential piece of content, a success story to feature on your website, blog and other publications. Format your entry forms so they can be easily turned into case studies: background, challenge, solution and results.

Many associations have an organizational culture that encourages striking out in new directions to meet the challenges facing our industry, but far too many do not. An awards program that showcases the innovative successes of fellow members can provide inspiration to those who face internal obstacles to change.

As for those boring awards dinners? Well, that’s a topic for another blog post.

What type of award would you like to see added to the traditional mix?

                                                                                                    Photo by Missy Schmidt