TRADE ASSOCIATIONS A New Form Of Networking

Seventy percent of Americans belong to one association. Twenty five percent 
belong to four or more associations. Our professional existence is held 
together by the network of people with whom we share common interests, even 
common goals. As technology gives us new ways to link up, communicate and 
share ideas, our need to identify with a collective presence reflects our 
need to become more significant. Today, this need is being fulfilled by 
privately organized, managed and funded trade associations.

FOR-PROFIT
If there ise anything that drives any venture to succeed, the principal 
motivation is profit - the commercial purpose for which any trade activity 
exists. Because we still maintain a mindset that associations should not 
be a money-making venture, it is difficult to imagine a trade association 
as a for-profit representative body of a particular trade.
However, as the efficiency, agility and productiveness of for-profit trade 
associations become evident, members become more confident that operating 
a for-profit trade assaociation is the only way to guarantee that the 
association will remain productive and beneficial to its members.

OBJECTIVES 
Unless your primary reason for creating a trade association is to lobby 
issues in Washington, your association's principal objective should more 
or less focus on information sharing. 

If you are creating a trade association as a forum for its memgbers to 
share ideas about their trade, it is essential that you provide your 
members this vehicle by which they can communicate, maybe even interact.
BEYOND MEMBERSHIP 
Since most associations get started with low membership dues, usually 
in the $20 to $30 bracket. Many associations are lucky to break even on 
membership dues alone. To guarantee its healthy existence, its financial 
foundations should expand beyond being exclusively dependent on membership 
dues.
Although most trade associations start off with a newsletter, it is in an 
edeal position to organize conventions (that provide members a forum to 
network, meet suppliers, and hear experts) which can be a prime money-maker 
for the association.