194. Jana Darling, President of MGI, on Why Membership Growth Is Getting Harder and Making Your Value Clear

What happens when membership growth gets harder, even though the members you already have continue to renew? How can associations better communicate their value, attract new members, and create the engagement that fuels growth?

In this episode of Associations Thrive, host Joanna Pineda interviews Jana Darling, President of Marketing General (MGI). Jana discusses:

The findings from MGI’s 2026 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, now in its 18th year and based on responses from nearly 500 associations.How membership growth is getting harder. Only 38% of associations reported membership growth this year, down from 45% the previous year and close to a historic low for the study.Why associations “cannot renew their way to growth.” Retention remains relatively steady at about 82%, but without a steady pipeline of new members, organizations will eventually decline.How strong retention suggests that associations are delivering value once people join. The challenge is often communicating that value effectively to prospective members.Why engagement is “the engine of everything else,” and why associations should begin engaging prospects before they join. With members increasingly strapped for time, associations also need to make participation easy and meaningful.Why associations need to continually reevaluate their member value proposition. With information increasingly available through AI, open access, and other free sources, associations must understand what members value today. Organizations that conduct regular member research are more likely to report membership growth.How 39% of associations say an inability to articulate their value prevents them from offering a more compelling member value proposition. Jana says that if members are the business of an association, the value proposition should be central to everything the organization does.How associations can use the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report to compare themselves with their peers, identify practices correlated with growth, set realistic expectations with their boards, and find opportunities to innovate and improve.

References:

MGI WebsiteMGI’s 2026 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report