“I’m not a joiner,” an architect recently explained to me. We were talking about the AIA and why this 30-something owner of a small firm wasn’t a member. I’ve heard this blanket explanation before, of course, but this architect also happened to be my Facebook “friend.” The contradiction made me think about the nature of joining and belonging in today’s networked culture and how organizations of all types, but membership-based organizations in particular, might evolve in future.
Joining and belonging are not inherently linked. Belonging often happens by default. One gets assigned to certain groups—female, Japanese-American, college-educated, in my case—and to varying degrees, by choice and not, these assignments become part of our identity and inform our life experiences. On the other hand, people join groups for a wide range of reasons—from promoting one’s business, to supporting a cause one believes in, to meeting a future mate—but one might argue that a sense of belonging is what drives sustained membership over time.
Over the past century, the social sciences have delved deeply into the nature of belonging and its imprint on human behavior. Psychologist Abraham Maslow, in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” placed the need for love and belonging just above essential physiological and safety requirements in his hierarchy of needs. Anthropology makes a more basic argument: for our prehistoric ancestors, belonging meant survival; therefore humans evolved into social creatures who are wired to coexist in groups. In the case of belonging and organizations, I’m referring to a modern sense of affiliation, shared values, and connection that give membership a sense of purpose.
Organizations courting new and renewing members often speak about the value of membership, and indeed, a cost-benefit analysis figures in any decision to join. What privileges or perks do I get as a member? How is the organization helping my practice? This commodified, customer model, which some link to the emergence of an increasingly individualized, consumer- oriented culture over the past thirty years, naturally focuses on tangible benefits when marketing membership.
But studies, not surprisingly, show that the more involved a member is the more he or she values the organization, and even for low- or non-participating members, the decision to join or renew taps into factors outside of the transactional analysis, such as identity or beliefs. I believe the arts are important for the cultural health of our city, therefore I am a member of the museum (even if I don’t go often enough to offset the costs of regular admission).
Experts concerned with organizational trends, however, point to several external forces that will shift organizational propositions away from value and more toward member engagement. In an often cited study, The Decision to Join: How Individuals Determine Value and Why they Choose to Belong (2007, American Society of Association Executives), James Dalton and Monica Dignam identified networking, access to current information, and professional development as the top three reasons given for joining associations. That these activities are increasingly available outside of established organizations is one of the main challenges to current recruitment strategies.
Other factors are rooted in what some are calling a post-deferential culture, that is, one that questions established norms and centralized governance models and seeks to have a voice in the organization. Much has been written about Millennials, for whom, one might infer, the world is one big a la carte menu. Millennials aren’t, however, less concerned about belonging, they simply have more varied, looser, and more fluid ways of connecting.
An architect interested in sustainable cities might participate in the AIA Committee on the Environment or the US Green Building Council, but she will most certainly seek information online from sites focused on sustainable design and development. She might also engage with a diverse and dispersed collection of like-minded organizations and individuals via Facebook and Twitter, from Secretary of Transportation Ray La Hood to cause-related nonprofits to colleagues. At the same time, she might be part of an ad hoc urban farming collective organized using Google groups until she starts a campaign to stop transit cuts and shifts affiliations.
Many experts have suggested that, in our increasingly networked and mobile culture, individual identity will become more associated with personal interests, and people will change organizational affiliations as their interests change. But, they argue, while people may be less likely to become lifelong members of an organization, they will want to have a greater role in shaping how an organization pursues its mission. This reflects a broader trend of participation and exchange, fostered by social media, which is affecting everything from marketing to our approach to healthcare.
In a recent talk, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the UK’s Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, noted that the challenge for membership organizations is to “adopt an organizational form that allows members, through their preferences and practices, to be co-producers of the strategy.” That this 250-year-old organization is also a model of how organizations can leverage social media is, perhaps, a reflection of this statement, but, one wonders how much of the RSA’s success is due to agile leadership versus its networked organizational model. (Taylor acknowledges that the new model is a work in progress.)
Our cultural fascination with decoding the emerging generation (i.e. the future) is always prone to overdramatic conclusions mixed with a dose of truth. Keystone organizations and established firms won’t vanish if they fail to implement robust social media programs, but ignoring the trends completely is not an option. Cultivating a sense of belonging, I would argue, is a bottom line driver for the recruitment and retention for organizations of all types and sizes. Before fretting over how to launch a blog, principals, executives, and board members might first consider how a blog can underpin a sense of belonging within their organization.
Resources
Beth Kanter and Allison Fine, The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010.
Paul Tomascik, “Member Communications and Engagement.” Ingenium Communications White Paper Series, March 2010.
“Future Focus: What will membership be like in five years’ time?” National Council of Voluntary Organizations, March 2010.
Matthew Taylor, “The Big Society: Challenges and opportunities for membership organisations.” Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Vision Videos, October 2010.
Yosh Asato is a communications consultant and writer specializing in the architecture and design industry. She may be reached at yosh@yoshasato.com.
Originally published 1st quarter 2011, in arcCA 11.1, “Valuing the AIA.”
