How to Foster Lasting Connections with Young Professionals
Forj teamed up with Highland Solutions for a webinar with David Whited, leader of the Future of Membership Initiative, and Amrita Kulkarni, Director of Design and Research Strategy. Together, they shared insights designed to help association leaders address one of their greatest challenges: how to attract, retain, and continuously engage young professionals.
David and Amrita offered a glimpse of Highland’s comprehensive research that has led to the development of the Young Professional Membership Index (YPMI) and YPMI Maturity Framework—two innovative tools that can help associations better understand and meet the needs of young professionals.
The Young Professional Challenge
The young professional challenge is showing up in ways that likely sound familiar: Decreasing acquisition. Decreasing retention. Decreasing engagement. While the dynamics change from year to year, these are the three primary challenges association leaders cite when they reflect on their engagement from the next generation of membership.
At the heart of these challenges is the sense that the relationship between young professionals (defined by Highland as having five years or less career experience) and their associations is transactional. That is,they don’t act like members; they act like customers. They join for limited and usually short-term reasons.
So why are young professionals joining less often? And when they do join, why are they less likely to stay? Highland’s research points to changing needs and expectations among young professionals, who are now looking for value beyond traditional association benefits.
Changing Needs: Functional, Social, and Emotional
Regardless of career stage, member needs can be categorized into three different buckets: functional, social, and emotional. Associations once met these needs robustly, but as a new generation of professionals emerges, we’re discovering that competition from digital platforms and a cultural shift toward work-life balance is challenging the association value proposition.
Consider these examples:
Functional Need: Young professionals are increasingly turning to DIY education platforms or digital resources like YouTube, Reddit, or for-profit providers. Associations now face the challenge of differentiating their educational offerings from these easy-to-access and popular solutions
Social Need: While in-person annual meetings used to be popular, virtual connections have replaced them to some degree and highlighted the need for associations to adapt to young professionals’ preference for work-life balance. (Why attend a multi day conference when you can learn in the comfort of your home?)
Emotional Need: Associations’ advocacy efforts may not resonate with young professionals, who – in an increasingly polarized environment – might not feel their unique needs are represented.
The key takeaway? Associations must offer differentiated experiences that go beyond transactional value and meet young professionals’ functional and social needs. And on the emotional side, they must cultivate affinity for mission in an age of cynicism.
Joining and Staying Dynamics: Bridging the Gap
Young professionals often join associations for transactional reasons, such as certification or board preparation, but these initial motivators don’t always drive them to stay. The secret to retention is moving beyond these one-time solutions to create ongoing value.
To bridge the gap between joining and staying, associations must build what David and Amrita refer to as a “bridge experience,” transitioning young professionals from the initial value they seek to ongoing, meaningful engagement.
This bridge involves a tailored one- to three-year experience that blends existing and new benefits, creating a connection that endures beyond initial engagement. The goal is to move members from a superficial relationship with their association to a long-term, mission-driven connection.
Case Study: American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) “Flight School”
AGU’s “Flight School” pilot program is a stellar example of a bridge experience. Designed to enhance first-year retention, “Flight School” included targeted career development sessions and tailored guidance for early-career professionals. It created deeper connections by offering career coaching, an exclusive app-based experience, and a dedicated “flight lounge” at AGU’s annual conference, all aimed at fostering a sense of partnership. The result? Early-career participants renewed at a rate 49.7% higher than non-participants, demonstrating the value of investing in experiential bridges.
The Young Professional Membership Index (YPMI): A Framework for Success
Highland developed the YPMI and YPMI Maturity Framework to help associations measure and enhance their engagement with young professionals. The YPMI focuses on four enabling factors:
- Leadership Focus: How invested are your board, C-suite, senior team, digital team, and program leaders in addressing the YP challenge?
- Culture of Value: How effectively do research, value proposition design, member journeys, and experience design come together to advance the engagement of YPs in your organization?
- Strategic Alignment: How well do organizational resources, OKRs, roadmaps, and shared metrics reflect a commitment to engaging YPs?
- Experience Infrastructure: Do you have the experience design capabilities, cross-functional collaboration, digital experience support, and culture of experimentation needed to deliver the type of membership experiences YPs respond to?
The YPMI Maturity Framework allows associations to evaluate their performance across these four enabling factors, shedding light on their capabilities, alignment, and actions. The framework empowers them to assess their readiness to meet young professionals’ needs, benchmark their progress, and refine their engagement strategies.
Where Associations Stand and Where They Can Go
The YPMI Maturity Framework groups associations into four tiers based on how well they are currently addressing young professional engagement challenges:
Value-Driven Pioneers: Strong leadership and culture of value.
Resourceful Hackers: Weak strategic alignment but robust experience infrastructure.
Prolific Traditionalists: Weak cultural value but reasonable experience infrastructure.
Under-Resourced Visionaries: Promising culture of value, poor leadership focus, and weak strategic alignment.
These tiers offer a starting point for improvement and a roadmap for transitioning from transactional relationships to more enduring connections with the next generation of membership.
If you’re ready to meet the young professional challenge head-on, discover how Forj’s solutions can support your association in creating lasting connections with the next generation of members.
