From Joining to Staying: Rethinking Younger Professional Engagement
In this episode of The Association Insights Podcast powered by OnWrd & UpWrd, we kick off our September series focused on how associations can better attract, engage and retain younger professionals—powered by our partners at Highland.
Our guest is Jon Berbaum, President of Highland, who joins host Colleen Gallagher to explore why younger professional engagement has become an association-wide strategic issue—and why getting someone to join is only the beginning.
🎧 If your association is working hard to attract younger professionals but struggling to keep them, this conversation is for you.
Key Highlights:
Joining vs. Staying: Why younger professionals increasingly join for a specific, transactional reason—and why associations need to treat the decision to stay as an entirely separate challenge.
The Long-Term Stakes: How low younger professional engagement can impact an association’s mission, revenue and long-term relevance.
From Customer to Member: Why the initial joining decision is an opportunity to begin building the experiences and relationships that give younger professionals a reason to stay.
AI and Career Partnership: How associations can look beyond staff efficiency and use AI to create new member value by coordinating resources and personalizing career support.
Trust Over Ownership: Why the question is shifting from What products and benefits do we own? to What trusted position do we occupy in someone’s career?
🎧 Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation on earning the decision to stay and becoming a more meaningful part of younger professionals’ career journeys.
Resources:
🌐 Learn more about Highland: www.highlandsolutions.com
📊 Take the Young Professional Membership Index: https://www.highlandsolutions.com/member-index/sign-up
The YPMI takes just 15 minutes to complete and helps association leaders see where their organization is strong, where it may be stuck and where to focus next – benchmarked against the field, with insights into young professional engagement, retention and AI maturity.
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Coming Soon: Throughout September, we’re exploring how associations can better attract, engage and retain younger professionals. Colleen and Highland’s David Whited will sit down with association leaders to unpack real-world approaches, lessons learned and what’s working—before David returns to close out the series and connect those experiences back to Highland’s research.
🎧 This special series is brought to you by our friends at Highland, where strategy meets research meets action.
