The Joy of Membership Podcast

This week’s guest is Elizabeth Pampalone from Absolute Marketing. Elizabeth is known as an international speaker, successful entrepreneur, and expert marketer with over 20 years of experience.  In the time that I’ve personally been working with associations, trade groups, and membership-based nonprofits, I’ve met a lot of marketing consultants and, to be completely honest, most of them sound exact...

This week’s guest is Amy Hager, a consultant who provides strategy and support for community-centric organizations. Amy’s inspiration and foundation for starting her own company is built from her in-depth experiences in the broadcasting, publishing, non-profit, technology, and consulting industries.  In our interview, you’ll hear her talk about what joy she finds in community building and providin...

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought of this episode’s featured organization often. Not only are they headquartered in Italy where the virus hit hard, but they also serve American women who live and work in Rome - women who were likely concerned for the situation in Italy, concerned for the situation back in the US, subject to travel restrictions, and trying to make sense of all o...

In this week's episode, we're exploring the question of whether a member's perception of value can actually be influenced by the look of the materials you give them. In other words, does brand really matter? Ross Kimbarovsky is the founder and CEO of Crowdspring, a company where you can connect with more than 220,000 freelancers to get custom logo design, web design, graphic design,...

Recently, I've had the opportunity to work closely with this week's podcast guest as we've collaborated on a client project. When I needed a fundraising specialist to help with the project, she was the first thing that jumped to mind. Julie Sootin is not only a consultant who specializes in fundraising, but she's also the Executive Director for the Association of Development Of...

Dr. Deb Rotman has been an active teacher, scholar, and practitioner of archaeology for more than 25 years and has a broad knowledge of both academic archaeology and CRM. When she joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame in 2006, Deb wanted to understand how a university with a French name became the Fighting Irish. Answering this question became the focus of her research on Irish immigr...

The podcast this week features an interview with Dick Haiduck, author of Shifting Gears. Dick is a former of life sciences executive and mentor who has been committed to maintaining an active retirement, and he knew that he was not alone in doing that. The interviews that he has conducted with fellow retirees about their desires to make meaningful contributions are the basis for his book. I was cu...

Part of the role of being a leader in a membership-based organization is ensuring that members experience a culture of acceptance and respect when engaging with us. Most of us want to be inclusive. We want to remove barriers that would make anyone feel unsafe or unheard. Yet, we know that our organizations exist within many systems where there can be problematic elements. Sometimes, we may even be...

My guest for this week’s episode is Heather Burright, Founder and CEO of Skill Masters Market. While Heather does consulting with organizations around instructional design and change management now, she came into that work from a large membership-based nonprofit. In our conversation, we specifically focused on the shift that is happening right now where more training is needing to happen in a virt...

When I think of industries that were perhaps hardest hit by the COVID-19 global pandemic, the event and trade show industry is pretty high on my list. This week’s guest, Marlys Arnold, saw the impact coming and knew it was going to be big. In addition to her role as an exhibit marketing strategist, Marlys has served as the organizer of several expos and events herself. She has led exhibitor worksh...

Have you ever heard the phrase “sacred cow”?  In a business context, a sacred cow refers to an idea, custom, or belief that an organization resists questioning or criticizing. Sometimes holding onto such ideas without questioning them can hold an organization back from being able to create change that is necessary to survival. Today’s guest is Dr. Stephan Meyer who received his PhD last November f...

My next guest and I had a good laugh after we closed out our interview because she was totally singing my tune and we hadn’t even practiced!  Anita Prather Harvell calls herself both an IT geek and an artist.  Her artistic resume is extensive… playing woodwinds and percussion in local pit orchestras, singing with a chorus, performing theatrically on stage, and, teaching marching band and color gua...

I think it is fair to say that this week’s guest is the perfect example of an association leader whose work reflects a lifelong passion.  Evelyn Green grew up on a farm in Alabama.  Her family’s beef operation was in the largest beef-producing county for that state. Since 1982, she has been involved in the support and management of her family farm. She is married to a professor of Animal Sciences...

This week, I’d like to introduce you to JJ Reynolds from Mediauthentic. JJ originally started working in the field of marketing as a videographer who would create marketing videos and other assets, but he quickly learned that organizations didn’t really know what to do with these things once they had them. That led him to dig into measurement, which he says is really what’s necessary to answer the...

Matt George and I live in the same town, but we hadn’t met until we recorded today’s interview. Oh sure… I had heard of Matt.  After all, he is the CEO of Children’s Home Association of Illinois.  I knew of the work that he did. I also knew that he had a book out for nonprofits. But I did not fully realize how innovative Matt’s approach was until I started looking more closely.   In fact, Kevin Ha...

One of my personal goals as I created this podcast format was to bring forward stories of value being created by mission-driven organizations covering a diverse array of topic areas, membership sizes and types, geographic location, and length of service.  As part of this podcast, you’ll hear from organizations that have been working toward their mission for decades, but you’ll also hear from some...

This week, Mary Conley Eggert shares her commitment to helping solve the world’s water crises… and there are actually many issues woven together that need urgent attention.   As she looked at what SHE could do to be helpful, she realized that her natural inclinations to network and connect people could help her create a community where the right people could come together to find solutions more qu...

My guest this week is Bruce Bro, President of the National Foundation for Danish America.  There are approximately 1.5 Million Americans who claim at least partial Danish heritage and call themselves “Danish Americans”. NFDA is a nonprofit organization, formed in 2019 to help Danish American organizations network, coordinate, share and collaborate all in an effort to preserve and promote the Danis...

Most membership organizations -want- to be using best practices for membership growth and member care... but best practices are often easier said than done. There are practical realities that get in the way… too little time, not enough staff, a board that doesn't "get it", or even chapter leaders that go rogue. There’s no shortage of advice out there on best practices in membership....