Sequence Consulting

Sequence Consulting Sequence Consulting helps associations grow membership, engagement, and revenue through smarter strategy and sharper insight. Let’s talk!

Trusted by leading associations nationwide. Subscribe to our newsletter: 📩 insights.sequenceconsulting.com At Sequence Consulting, we help associations grow membership, engagement, and revenue with proven strategies. Since 2001, we’ve partnered with 12 of the top 20 associations, delivering exceptional results—tripling growth rates, 10X non-dues revenue, and doubling membership.

09/15/2026

Association leaders can describe their bylaws in detail. Far fewer can describe what the first 30 days feel like for a brand-new member.

The documents are usually fine.

The experience they produce is the part that rarely gets checked -- what a newcomer runs into, what a volunteer chair hits when they try to get something done, what a longtime member meets at renewal, and what a sponsor finds when they ask one simple question.

The people running an association live inside it, so they rarely see it the way an outsider would. It's the blind spot we run into most often.

If you joined your own association tomorrow, what would the first month feel like?

09/11/2026

Picture the program at your association that everyone privately thinks should end, but somehow never does.

For a long time we read that as a courage problem. The deeper issue is the lack of a filter. When you weigh each program one at a time, every cut becomes a negotiation, and somebody loses.

The disciplined teams agree on the test first, before any one program is on the table:

- Is it still on mission?
- Is it on strategy?
- Do members actually use it?
- Will the market pay for it?

A program that misses on more than one gets a sunset date. Writing that test is the easy part. Applying it to a program people love is the hard part.

Which of your programs would survive it?

09/09/2026

In many associations, the bigger risk hides in plain sight. It's everything that's already in place, like current programs and commitments, but no one is willing to stop them once they've served their purpose.

A piece from Chris Vaughan, Co-Founder of Sequence Consulting, is live on the ASAE Center blog. It takes on a question most strategic plans quietly avoid: what are we keeping by default that's making us less able to respond?

When new initiatives keep being added, and old ones never leave, the organization slowly becomes harder to move. That accumulation is rarely treated as a risk, but it should be.

What's one program or commitment your association keeps because no one wants to be the one to end it?

📍 Find the full article link in the comments.

09/08/2026

New research on the association sector is worth your team's attention, and our co-founder Chris Vaughan flagged it as a groundbreaking read for boards.

Association Laboratory's latest study argues that the challenges associations face are structural, not only a rough season. Here is what stood out to us:

- Competition is now about opportunity cost, with members weighing you against employer programs, commercial training, and digital communities.
- Stable retention can mask the real risk, because it reflects past value more than future positioning.
- Employer influence over members' decisions rose from 37% in 2021 to 50% in 2026.
- Professional identity is fragmenting, so membership is one affiliation among many rather than the anchor it once was.

The question isn't how to improve what an association already does. It's whether it is built for the environment it now faces.

We're sharing the link to Association Laboratory's full article in the comments.

09/01/2026

Sequence co-founder Chris Vaughan joined Tony Martignetti on , the number 1 podcast for nonprofit professionals, to talk about the toughest numbers in fundraising.

More than half of the donors a nonprofit brings in this year will be gone by next year, and a first-time donor has less than a one-in-five chance of ever giving again.

The fix lives in the 90 days after a first gift.

That means a quick survey asking why someone gave, a thank-you that goes out right away, and a second ask three weeks in, while the decision to give again is still open. Small nonprofits can run all of it with the tools they already have.

What does a first-time donor hear from your organization in their first 30 days?

Full episode link is in the first comment.

08/04/2026

Membership is holding, and events are full again.
For a lot of associations, this is the most confident they've felt since 2020.

Our co-founder Chris Vaughan has been asking leadership teams a sharper question about that confidence:

- Compared to what?

Measured against 2020, almost everything looks like a recovery. But 2020 was a false floor, and stability relative to a crisis isn't the same as progress relative to what an organization could become.

The associations pulling ahead are choosing a tougher benchmark. Instead of comparing today to their hardest year, they're comparing it to what they could be if they were built for the environment they're in now.

Which baseline is your board using right now?

07/23/2026

A room of nurses thinks differently from a room of advertisers. Their professions trained them differently for years before they ever joined a board.

A nurse can't afford a mistake. Because when they do, people can lose their lives.
Whereas an advertiser jumps from idea to idea all day.

When those professions become an association, the association inherits the mentality. Some associations default to caution, others to speed, others to rigor, and others to the hustle.

The character carries over. Sometimes, that personality serves the decisions in front of them. Sometimes, it boxes the org in.

What's the personality of your association, and is it still serving the decisions you have to make?

07/22/2026

AI for content and customer service is now standard across associations. That's useful work, and it's also the new baseline. The associations finding real value start somewhere else.

They look at the data and expertise only they have, and build AI capability around that asset.

The Institute of Food Technologists is a great example. As the only organization that cuts across every food science discipline in this country, they hold cross-disciplinary research no one else can replicate.

They turned it into a subscription AI service that helps members do research nothing else could support.

What is the asset only your association has?

07/20/2026

One question changes more strategic conversations than any other we facilitate at Sequence:

"What if we do nothing?"

We take the trends already in motion at your association, like membership, dues, retention, and program participation, and project them forward as if nothing meaningful changes.

Most leaders project a steady line forward.

The data usually reveals a slow leak.

That's the moment "doing nothing" reveals itself as a decision, where revenue shortfalls widen, retention compounds, and programs that look sustainable today show real stress in 2 or 3 years.

Suddenly, the question becomes "can we afford not to change?"

When was the last time your team modeled the cost of staying the same?

07/14/2026

AI is hitting the juniors first, doing the research and analysis that takes 3 to five 5 to grow into real judgment. When that work disappears, so does the path to middle management.

If AI replaces all your junior analysts today, where will tomorrow's executive director come from?

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