5 Tips to Make Your Association’s Risks Worth the Revenue Reward

Making new moves with your association’s non-dues revenue strategy can feel like a terrifying journey. How can you make sure the moves you’re making are going to pay out greater rewards than the risk? When it comes to taking big risks, your association should be on top of its game to make sure things don’t go awry. While the reward may be high, it can spell disaster if you aren’t managing your risks the right way.

In fact, big risks don’t necessarily have to be as risky as you may believe. If you’re looking to making drastic leaps of faith with your non-dues revenue strategy, we’re here to help you make sure you land on your feet and get the rewards you deserve. Let’s go over 5 tips to make sure your association’s risks are worth the non-dues revenue reward.

1. Document your risks

If you’re association is going to try new tactics and make risky decisions, you’re going to want to document the process. Not documenting your non-dues revenue strategy can cause problems down the road for even the most successful association. If you aren’t back logging the moves and decisions you make, you can have a hard time keeping up both continuity and accountability if anything goes wrong.

How can you fix a problem if you don’t have the history of how the problem was created readily available? Be sure your association’s revenue team is keeping track of each move they make no matter the size of the risk.

2. Monitor risky projects

Similar to documenting your steps, risky projects should have a watchful eye on them at all time. Having top team members monitoring your non-dues revenue projects is a great way to make sure risks are being managed the right way. You should be monitoring the way your revenues strategies are performing every step of the way. You also want to be analyzing the gain coming from your non-dues revenue risks.

By the time your project is well on its way, you’ll be able to monitor how well it’s performing. And if some risks aren’t bringing in the profit that you expected, it might be a good idea to cut those risks off before they do more harm than good. Monitoring revenue gain can help you analyze what’s working well and what isn’t.

3. Do your research

When making any new decision that can affect the way your association functions in the future, always go in doing as much research as possible. Take the time to run the numbers and research the right information before making any moves. If you aren’t sure where to take your non-dues revenue strategy, brainstorm what options are out there for you.

Or, if you’re looking to start a somewhat risky revenue stream up, research the success that other organizations have had with this move in the past. Or, you can take the time to research ways to keep your strategy managed and safe. There’s a lot of information floating around that could potentially save you from a disaster when broadening your non-dues revenue strategy.

4. Be alright with discomfort

If you’re planning on taking huge risks, you need to be alright with the fact that it’s going to feel uncomfortable. No organization likes the feeling of putting their success on the line in order to reap large rewards in the process. It may feel like your association is putting everything it has up for grabs, including your member satisfaction, but if you’re really looking to take a leap of faith with your revenue strategy, you have to be okay with feeling a bit out of your comfort zone.

‍However, if you’d like to diminish the feeling of discomfort, taking our advice with prior tips can help. If you very closely assess the risks you’re taking, you’ll have less fear and anxiety over them. Learning all you can about your risks will help you better understand and plan for the next steps. You can’t make huge strides forward without getting your association outside of its comfort zone when plotting for more revenue success.

5. Don’t be afraid of failure

No matter the hard work, patience, and care you put into your plan, there is the chance that you may not land on your feet in the long run. Not every risk your association takes is going to come out on top. If you want to seek out these rewards, you should also have a recovery plan in place when risks don’t go as expected. In order to do this, meet with your association’s team and brief them on the proper moves and precautions to take should you fail with your non-dues revenue plans.

You should always have a backup or damage control plan in place for these types of situations to mitigate any further damage you could do to your association and its membership. Being prepared for the worst is always your best bet. If you feel like taking the risks to get the reward you’re looking for in terms of association non-dues revenue, use our tips to guide you to a better managed strategy.