I recently had the pleasure of joining Memcom’s annual conference for leaders, changemakers and innovators across the membership, association and non-profit sectors. Each year, we bring together senior professionals, CEOs, strategists and sector specialists to explore the ideas, trends and challenges shaping the future of membership organisations.
The theme of this year’s Memcom focused on a topic that is not only important to the membership sector, but something very present in our day-to-day, Belonging: Finding value and vision in a changing world. Perhaps that’s why the day’s conversations felt enriching, relatable and thought provoking; we’re all seeking the same answer across our personal and professional lives, and looking to the community to find it.
Across 20 different sessions, from topics about The Evolving Psychology of Membership, to Designing Member Journeys that Matter and Understanding Leadership in the Age of Change, Memcom 2026 gave the sector, and the individuals who work within it, plenty of opportunities, challenges and risks to consider.
At manifesto, I am working with membership bodies who are undergoing change, whilst trying to find their new and renewed purpose; in other words, the value proposition. Some of the problems we’re facing are technology heavy, others are process-driven and the most complicated ones are people and culture related.
With that lens I attended Memcom, trying to understand what was “normal or novel” in what the membership sector is facing (a phrase used by Ruth Stuart, the Strategy & Planning Director at AAT- Accounting Technicians), and how best to operate within it.
Here are some of the key ideas I have taken away.
Lead with expertise
Members are looking for expertise. They are looking for support from their organisation that goes beyond its professional duty, and creates a space of resilience, understanding and value for members within the profession. They rely on their organisation to provide the research and knowledge that will help navigate the change in their profession, and equally, to use that expertise to influence a people-backed direction of the profession.
Focus on values & outcomes
It’s a universal experience that in any deep chat with your friends and family, someone is instinctively asking “what is my purpose?”. Membership organisations are asking this as well, in the form of a value proposition. Just as having a purpose breathes life into our day, so does a value[d] proposition engage members. Yet 19% of organisations say they don’t know what their proposition is; and for those who don’t, developing this becomes the core of a new strategy. If you’re one of these organisations, Tom Shelston of the Chartered Institute of Breweries & Distilleries suggests to not only ask what do our members need, but what are the values and incentives for the employers of our members? How does framing it by its outcome impact your operations?
Have you heard of relational transformation?
In a session about meaningful transformation through journeys, Claire Angus the CEO of the British Institute of Radiology mentioned the term that was immediately scribbled into everyone’s notebooks. It is this idea that we know what we want members to do, but do we know what we want them to feel? In addition to signing up for an email subscription, what do we want them to experience in the first week with the organisation? When they give us a call, do we ask for their name or their membership number? When we look at members as people, and as relationships we need to protect and nurture, it creates a different list of things to do.
Transformation by doing
Change creates uncertainty. When the world is in constant change and uncertainty, you can find cultural resistance to big scale “transformation” within an organisation is even more present. Claire, along with Damien Watson, CEO from Layercake and Oliver Humi, COO of of British Dietetic Association, talked about “Building the case” for transformation. This means setting the right conditions for staff engagement, developing a strategy based on learning, feedback and feeling, and de-risking the big change by doing it smaller.
This is a practice we lead with at manifesto. We call that “Transformation by doing”. Focusing on micro, iterative improvements that allow experiments with technologies, processes and structures to find what works. This method shows early results, increases engagement and allows staff to do what works well, and most importantly, accounts for change, greatly reducing the risk of transformations that are often too big and subsequently fail.
Community underpins sustainability
Throughout the day, the word sustainability was used often in conversation. Should we diversify to maintain a sustainable revenue stream? How do we sustain our membership? How much longer can we sustain the risk in our technology debt? In one of my favourite moments of the day, somebody asked, “I know the sector is looking for sustainability, but other than the sentiment, does anybody know sustainability in what?”
The risk to the sector is that the answer is everything. While everything feels urgent, and it might in fact be, with this mindset membership organisations risk re-platforming the same problems. Organisations will therefore have to instil a discipline and problem-solving focus towards pace and change management not seen in years. They will have to be clear on what new foundations and pillars they want to build, what factors they are willing to risk along the way, and what is the purpose that will drive their future as an organisation.
If the power lies in belonging, in an organisation’s ability to sustain its community, perhaps the better all-encompassing question is: how do we create links that foster community?
If you attended Memcom 2026, or if you’re simply asking yourself how to better deliver value and drive transformation I’d love to connect. I work directly with membership organisations to navigate these exact challenges. As always, the best path forward is through collaboration and community.