President’s Foreword – IAMC Membership & Culture
By J. Tate Godfrey, CEcD, President & CEO
To quote former IAMC Chair Kevin Dollhopf, formerly with Hanesbrands and now with Hickey and Associates, “...there is no issue within IAMC that can’t be improved by adding more Corporate Members.” That is why IAMC exists and, with monitored emphasis on retention and recruitment, that is why IAMC will continue to flourish.
Membership recruitment and retention has always been and will consistently remain one of IAMC’s top priorities. The IAMC Strategic Plan – as defined and approved by the board of directors – calls for increasingly higher goals each year for both Corporate member retention (80% currently) and recruitment (70 new Corporate members each year).
IAMC has many policies and guidelines in place to protect the balance of IAMC’s membership – across Corporate End Users & Corporate Real Estate Advisors, Economic Developers and Service Providers – which has a direct and meaningful impact on the organization’s culture. We carefully monitor both new member recruitment and member retention, using a defined formula adopted by the board in 2012, to manage and protect this balance.
As of June 30, 2023, our membership make-up is as follows:
| Corporates (Individual Memberships) | 236 |
| 146 Companies and 90 Additional Corporates | |
| Corporate Real Estate Advisors (CREA) | 9 |
| Embedded contract Corporates | |
| Economic Developers | 216 |
| National, state, regional, and local organizations | |
| Service Providers | 173 |
| Companies providing services to Corporates | |
| Honorary Members | 2 |
| Retired Members | 14 |
| Total | 650 |
IAMC, while relatively small in the world of professional trade associations, is deliberate in our growth with an eye on providing value at every turn. In fact, we currently have an Associate member waitlist consisting of 80 Service Providers Companies and 44 Economic Development Organizations. While we do offer any waitlisted organization the opportunity to bring new a new corporate member and join immediately, the average time on the waitlist is consistently around 3 ½ years.
An important caveat to the IAMC Associate member waitlist is that state-wide economic development organizations can join IAMC at any time. IAMC currently has 36 of the 50 states represented in our membership.
Ultimately, IAMC is an organization built on and for meaningful relationship building and focused professional development opportunities. And this balance of membership is instrumental in creating a unique culture focused on quality. In short, our culture facilitates true friendship making and knowledge sharing, and we truly believe that when the relationships come first, the business follows.
Tate.