Chapters have a significant impact on the success of the association they’re part of. Most associations don’t have staff who are devoted to chapter management, so building solid relationships and improving chapter performance can be a challenge. This challenge can be overcome by respecting the needs and empower your chapter leaders to take initiative on projects that benefit your association and the individual chapters. Here are some easy ways to better manage chapters, drive profits, and improve their performance.
Support Chapters’ Priorities and Processes
The work that chapters are doing needs to align with the mission of the whole association, but this doesn’t mean they can’t have their own way of doing things. As long as the priorities of the chapter also help to advance your whole association, you should support these initiatives.
Allow your chapters to work out what works best for them. Their staff and members may prefer to do things differently to other chapters and your headquarters, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t effective.
If you give your chapters the freedom that they need to manage their responsibilities in the way that they like to work, your chapters can feel more independent. You can also build a better, more productive working relationship by showing you support and respect their approach.
Give Chapters the Tools That They Need to Succeed
Your chapters need the right tools to get results. Give them what they need to operate and win new members. These tools might include:
- A unique website or landing page for the chapter
- Email tools to contact members or more targeted audiences
- Event management tools, like calendars
- Engagement and activity metrics for leasers to determine success rates and areas for improvement
- Financial tools like www.Billhighway.co
Take the time to have regular conversations with each of your chapter leaders and members to review what tools they might need, and how the tools they already have been working for them. Whether you do this in person or via a call, you can make sure you’re providing the right tools and show that you are committed to supporting each chapter that comes under your association.
Encourage Healthy Competition
The best technology for associations will allow chapters to access the metrics that they need to monitor their own performance, but it will also show them how they are performing compared to other chapters.
A leaderboard tool can combine performance metrics from each chapter, so your association is able to see which chapter has the biggest impact. You could list chapters in order of highest to lowest performance, set benchmarks, and allow chapters to compare themselves against each other
Leaderboards like this can foster an environment of healthy competition, as people will want to be at the top of the list. Getting to the top of the leaderboard can give a lot of motivation for chapters to up their own performance. You could go the extra mile with a contest to boost that sense of competition even further.
