The Future of Membership Collaborative
We provide ongoing, transformative research into young professionals' changing needs, expectations, and behaviors to the world's leading associations and help them shape membership programs and products that engage.
The future of
membership looks bleak
Young professionals join less often, engage more transactionally, and leave more frequently.
Their behavior, expectations, and preferences are consistent across every industry and significantly different from previous generations.
Every membership team struggles to know how to navigate all the challenges this presents.
Current research is not good enough
The way associations gather research insights is outdated and insufficient for this challenge.
Member surveys, focus groups, and stakeholder interviews create echo chambers and elicit opinions instead of facts about people's behavior.
Tackling a shared challenge together
The Future of Membership Collaborative, built on the non-competitive nature of associations, provides best-in-class research and recommendations for a fraction of the cost of a single full-time researcher or one research study with an outside firm.
Our experienced, fully dedicated research and design team is focused entirely on the needs and journeys of medical professionals and crafting membership value propositions, products, and services.
"I've been looking at member data for 30 years and I've never seen anything like the content and quality of Highland's research. Their work is incredibly insightful and actionable."
"Highland’s work is excellent – timely, relevant, practical, and needed. They create actionable research and resources for developing value propositions, products, and services that younger generations will value. I highly recommend their work."
Get transformative, actionable insights
Every year, we dive into four to six of the most pressing, valuable topics for association leaders. Our mixed methods research approach with members and non-members produces consistently exceptional, actionable insights.
The work is focused on:
Member needs
We look at behaviors, not opinions, to uncover unmet and under-met needs, with a particular focus on young professionals.
Member journeys
We study career journeys and membership journeys, with a particular focus on the student to resident to fellowship process.
Products & services
We collaborate with members and non-members to shape and evaluate products and services that members and prospective members will value.