ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership Impact Study

Beliefs, Behaviors, and Attitudes in Response to the Economy

Why study how members of associations feel about the current economy? In many ways association members represent the sturdiest support beams of the American workforce, as they represent a highly educated, well compensated, and highly employable sector of the working public. To that end, even slight murmurs of anxiety about the economy among this group could speak to more pronounced shifts overall. ASAE & The Center’s study is one of the biggest and broadest conducted of association members, including more than 8,500 respondents across 97 diverse associations. As the results show, association members are largely confident in the face of the economic downturn, but they also have a number of significant concerns. Their thoughts about how they plan to respond to the recession provide valuable insights for leaders, both within the association sector and outside of it.

An indication of the generally rosy outlook among association members is that more than twice as many of them expect their employment situation to improve than worsen in the coming year.