When planning, invite the member who almost left

Hi there,

I learned a long time ago that most planning meetings are missing one critical attendee:

The member who almost left.

We gather research, polish the slide deck, and maybe even print the sticky notes, but if the only voices in the room are the ones who already love us, we end up planning for people like us.

Associations don’t intend to drift inward, but when we bring a selected set of individuals (often unintentionally), that inward drift just happens quietly over time.

So, what have we learned to combat this common approach?

Engagement doesn’t start with a plan.

It starts with who’s in the room when the plan is made. When members can see themselves in the process, their frustrations, their hopes, their fingerprints, buy-in is achieved from the start.

Over the last twenty years, working with hundreds of associations, we’ve learned that transparency and inclusion aren’t “nice-to-haves.” They’re the most reliable predictors of execution success. When people believe the plan reflects their lived reality, alignment stops being a sell and starts being a shared act of stewardship.

Here’s the simple playbook we use to make planning genuinely member-led rather than member-flavored:

Begin with lapsed or low-engagement members. The ones who quietly drifted away will tell you truths your loyalists can’t. One association we worked with was convinced its flagship program was its biggest draw until they talked to the members who left and learned that no one even knew it existed.

Your front-line staff hear the truth first. They know which emails confuse people, where renewal stalls, and what gets ignored. Five honest conversations with staff who talk to members daily will outperform fifty slides of KPIs.

Join. Renew. Try to find your flagship content. Count the emails you get for a week. You’ll be amazed at what that experience teaches you. You can’t fix what you haven’t personally felt.

Segment by what members care about — not by your org chart. Advocacy, daily practice, learning, and community. Lead with those needs, and let one clear promise guide each. Engagement rises when the message and motivation match.

After your discovery work, share a short, public summary: one paragraph on what you heard, one on what you’ll do. That simple transparency builds trust faster than any glossy annual report.

Pick one recurring complaint and convert it into a 14-day fix. Shorten renewal time, surface high-value content, and merge duplicate emails. Quick, visible wins create energy for the bigger moves ahead.

Thirty days after your plan launches, show the change. “We reduced renewal time by 30%.” “We replaced three overlapping newsletters with one.” When members see their input has made a difference, engagement stops being a survey and becomes a relationship.

Lisa and I started Sequence at our kitchen table in Chicago because we believed in simple, practical moves that make big change visible. These seven ground rules came from years of watching real teams earn their members’ trust the old-fashioned way... by listening.

I heard this early on from an association leader, but it's always been true: your members don’t want to be impressed; they want to be included.

Send a three-question pulse survey to 100 members and to five front-line staff.

Ask:

Bring the top three insights to your next conversation.

PS - as we approach the end of 2025, we are working through a 2026 report that we're excited to share with everyone. Be on the lookout. Preview coming soon.

- Chris