How Software Challenges Are Hurting Your Association’s Financial Sustainability & Member Retention

Is This Happening in Your Association?

• Does your association offer members a proprietary software platform?
• Is your board constantly juggling the platform’s budget without a clear path forward?
• Are you questioning whether the association has the expertise to overcome persistent software challenges or guide its evolution?

If your answer to these questions is “yes,” you’re not alone. Many associations face these pain points, which can undermine financial sustainability and member retention.

This article will help demystify why your association might be struggling and provide actionable insights to tackle these challenges head-on.

Why Software Challenges Impact Association Goals

When your software platform underperforms, achieving critical board responsibilities becomes nearly impossible:

1. Increasing Member Engagement and Retention: Relevant and seamless software is essential for attracting new members and keeping existing ones engaged.
2. Ensuring Financial Sustainability: Budgeting becomes unpredictable as software issues siphon resources away from events, sponsorships, and other revenue streams.
3. Maintaining Governance and Compliance: Outdated or ineffective software hinders adaptability to changing legal and operational landscapes.

The result? Associations face a dual challenge: managing limited resources while attempting to optimize a platform that fails to deliver its promised value.

Competing with Commercial Software Providers

Software companies have extensive resources, including teams with expertise in:

• Product Leadership: Staying ahead of technological advancements.
• Product Management: Delivering new features members want.
• Marketing and User Retention: Scaling platforms and keeping users engaged.
• Customer Support: Meeting daily helpdesk needs and resolving issues promptly.

In contrast, associations often rely on a single technical leader or outsource to vendors who may not fully understand their strategic goals or how to drive platform sales. Lacking a comprehensive team approach with all the needed expertise puts associations at a significant disadvantage.

Signs Your Association's Software Platform Needs a Health Check

Consider these symptoms of poor software management. If any resonate, your board might benefit from an independent evaluation so you can make the right changes before cost control becomes out of reach:

1. Slow Response Times: Bugs, slow feature updates, and integration issues frustrate users.
2. Outages and Performance Declines: Members experience slow loading times or outages.
3. High Costs for Limited Improvements: Fixes are expensive, time-consuming, and fail to address underlying issues.
4. Declining Membership: Users leave for commercial alternatives.
5. Staff Burnout: Internal teams spend excessive time troubleshooting without addressing systemic issues.
6. Missed Opportunities: Communication gaps between the board and technical teams prevent alignment with strategic goals.
7. Inadequate Reporting: Data storage is costly, and reporting features fail to meet user needs.
8. Inability to Adopt New Technologies: Outdated systems hinder the integration of advancements like generative AI.
9. Reputation Damage: An outdated platform impacts member trust, recruitment, and sponsor interest.

When Is the Right Time to Act?

The best time to address these issues is now — before approving another costly patch or workaround. By stepping back, your board can:

1. Identify Root Causes: Work with an independent third party to evaluate strategic, financial, and technical challenges.
2. Create a Long-Term Plan: Collaborate with experts to develop a roadmap that aligns software goals with the association’s mission.
3. Optimize Resources: Invest strategically to build a scalable, cost-effective platform that meets member needs.

Case Study: Turning Around a Troubled Platform

A professional association struggled with escalating software costs and declining member satisfaction. Their technical vendor provided vague timelines and budgets, treated strategic goals as afterthoughts, and lacked a clear growth plan.

Faced with a 20-year timeline to achieve their user growth targets, the board sought an independent software health check from our team at Aligned. The evaluation uncovered root causes, from technical limitations to misaligned priorities. Armed with these insights, the association partnered with experts to:

• Redefine their strategic goals.
• Develop a realistic roadmap.
• Transition to a scalable solution that balances cost and performance.

The result? A revitalized platform that increased member engagement, stabilized the budget, and positioned the association for sustainable growth.

Final Thoughts

Investing in a strategic platform evaluation is critical to aligning your software’s capabilities with your association’s mission. Don’t let ongoing software challenges drain your budget and alienate your members. Instead, equip your board with the insights to make informed, impactful decisions.

How would you describe any challenges in managing your software platform while also running the association? We'd love to hear from you at hello@aligned.net.