In a recently published report entitled: Growing Non-Dues Revenue – A Benchmarking Report the Avenue M Group reports on a survey of nearly 200 association executives. A key finding was that nearly half (49%) of the associations participating in the study expect non-dues revenue to increase as a percentage of their budget in 2017 compared to 2016.

Many respondents (32%) report generating revenue by offering suppliers or vendors to their market, custom research opportunities such as survey panels, focus groups or interviews with members.

Here are two ideas that they mention as a means of increasing non-dues revenue:

“Create partnerships that solve vendors’ challenges. Conduct surveys and focus groups with current and potential partners to better understand what information they need to achieve their sales goals and meet the needs of existing clients.”

“Leverage existing data and relationships to provide unique insights and information into your industry. Offer potential business partners access to aggregated data, customized research panels and focus groups.”

If you’re interested in using member research to generate non-dues revenue please have a look at the following resources:

1) The blog post lists five examples of knowledge products http://bit.ly/2bM2zQF. 

2) As well, you can download a copy of our paper entitled: 3 Key Steps in the Creation of Knowledge Products. This link will take you directly to that paper. http://bit.ly/1LjGPVQ