President’s Foreword - IAMC's Strategic Plan

By J. Tate Godfrey, CEcD, President & CEO

In 2019, IAMC set out an ambitious 5-year strategic plan under the guidance, vision and leadership of Mr. Charlie Waltz with BASF who was Chairman of the IAMC Board at that time. Completely supported by the IAMC Board of Directors, this ambitious 5-year plan has resulted in numerous improvements and changes to IAMC, many of which we take for granted today.

To develop this robust plan, IAMC invested upwards of $65,000 and almost a year of time. We contracted with an association management focused consulting firm, Reed Scott – Mr. Robert Reed and Ms. Wendy Scott – who guided the IAMC Board and staff through a comprehensive look at our operations. The 2019 Strategic Plan took an association-wide look at goals and metrics, performed intensive surveys of the membership, both corporate members and associate members, and the Board of Directors.

The result of this process was to categorize our association’s future performance into seven sections with over 90 groups of goals and metrics: 1) Value Proposition; 2) Member Retention; 3) Member Recruitment; 4) Sponsorships and Partnerships; 5) Member Engagement; 6) Operations; and 7) Board Governance. The accompanying goals and metrics touched every aspect of our association and set a clear vision to make IAMC a better organization.

Fast forward five years to the January 2024 Board meeting in Atlanta. For this meeting, the staff prepared a summary of the 2019 goals and metrics and presented the results of our efforts. Here are some of the highlights:

• New written value propositions were created for corporate, economic developer, and service provider members. These value statements help in recruiting new members and investors in IAMC. They have been kept up to date and in service for the past five years.
• A revitalized emphasis on corporate member retention and engagement has resulted in our corporate member retention rate going from 68% in 2019 to 82% in 2023.
• A renewed emphasis on corporate recruitment has allowed IAMC to reach its highest-ever number of corporate members in 2024 with 261. IAMC achieved some aggressive recruiting goals over the past 5 years – even in the face of a global pandemic.
• Recognizing the importance of sponsorships and their impact on association revenues, IAMC has attained a very balanced revenue stream: 24% of IAMC Revenue is from Membership Dues; 30% of IAMC Revenue is from Event Registration Fees; and 44% of IAMC Revenue is from Sponsorships. These non-dues revenues are in the upper percentiles for professional associations – especially those of a comparable size to IAMC.
• Emphasizing transparency as a key to good governance, IAMC created an Annual Report to the Membership, and conducted a complete overhaul of the IAMC By-Laws and IAMC Policy Manual.

At the recent meeting, the current IAMC Board reviewed these results and began discussions on our next set of strategic plans. More on that to come in a future edition of Dispatch.

IAMC has been blessed to have some strong leadership over the course of our history. Dedicated members that want to see IAMC grow and flourish. I want to personally thank and congratulate Charlie Waltz for his commitment to our 2019 Strategic Plan. His vision and commitment to a comprehensive process has helped IAMC be a better association and has set a high bar for future IAMC leaders to follow.

Tate.