There’s a better way to retain members.

It’s not another campaign, survey, or discount.

Retention by Design™ is a membership strategy system that guides your leadership team through designing a membership members find essential.

Let’s talk

Find out in 20 minutes whether Retention by Design™ is right for your association.

Charlene BowmanFounder, Retention by Design™

Your association does not need to solve every problem your members have.

Choose the problem your association is going to solve. That choice gives your team a solid foundation for building a membership members find essential.

How Retention by Design™ works.

01.Choose the problem.Choose the problem your association wants its membership to solve.

Your leadership team gets access to the Retention by Design digital workspace.

Inside the workspace, your team chooses the problem your association is going to solve through membership. This is not about trying to solve every problem your members have. It is about deciding what your membership is designed to solve.

That decision becomes the foundation for the membership strategy your team builds next.

02.Design a membership members find essential.Build the membership around solving that problem.

Your team uses the digital workspace to build the membership around the problem you chose and the result your membership promises.

Then you send me your renewal and benefit-use data. I analyze the renewal rates among members who used each benefit.

Your team uses that information to fine-tune the strategy. Once the strategy is set, your team runs benefits through the Retention by Design standards to make sure they are designed to help members get the result your membership promises.

03.Make membership decisions with confidence.Use a clear strategy to decide which benefits belong, which need to be refined, and how to design future benefits around the result your membership promises.

You leave with a real membership strategy built by your team and shaped by your data.

It gives your team a clear basis for evaluating current benefits and future benefit ideas. You can determine whether a benefit helps members get the result your membership promises, whether it needs to be refined, and whether a new benefit belongs in the membership.

Instead of relying on a long list of benefits to explain membership value, your team has a strategy for making decisions that keep the membership focused on the problem it is designed to solve.

What your team receives.

You’ll leave with a real membership strategy built by your team, shaped by your data, and designed to make membership essential.

Your Retention by Design™ Blueprint, capturing the strategy your team built
A defined problem and the result membership promises to help members achieve
A clear member path with benefits connected to that result
Renewal-rate analysis for benefits with usable data
Decisions about which benefits belong, need to change, or are missing
Benefits evaluated against the twelve Retention by Design™ standards

From a long benefit list to a membership with a clear purpose.

With Retention by Design™

Without Retention by Design™

One chosen problem guides membership decisions.

Different requests shape the membership.

Each benefit has a job tied to the promised result.

Benefits may serve different, unrelated purposes.

Members can see what membership helps them accomplish.

Members may have to work out how the benefits fit together.

One set of standards is used to check the benefits.

Benefits may be assessed one at a time.

Built by an association leader.

Charlene Bowman
Founder, Retention by Design™

With more than a decade in association operations, I know your team understands your members, membership, and day-to-day realities better than anyone else can through a few discovery calls.

That is why I built Retention by Design: a guided digital workspace that helps your leadership team choose the problem your membership will solve, build the strategy around it, and use renewal and benefit-use data to fine-tune the work.

Your team brings the knowledge. Retention by Design provides the process, structure, and standards to turn it into a membership members find essential.

Frequently asked questions.

We already have an AMS and an experienced team. Why would we need Retention by Design™?

Your team brings the knowledge of your association, and your AMS holds important membership data. Retention by Design™ gives your leadership team a guided process for choosing the problem membership will solve, building a strategy around that result, and deciding how your benefits support it. I analyze your renewal and available benefit-use data to inform those decisions. The finished strategy is captured in your Retention by Design™ Blueprint.

Our members have different problems. How can we choose just one?

You are choosing the problem your association will build the membership to solve, not saying your members have only one problem. Your leadership team decides whom the membership is designed for and considers what different member groups need to reach the promised result. The membership has one clear purpose, while the benefits can account for the different members it serves.

How much time and staff involvement will this require?

Your leadership team works through the decisions in a guided digital workspace, with people contributing as their schedules allow. There is no required series of consulting workshops. You will need leadership input, information about your current benefits, and time to provide renewal and available benefit-use data. The total time depends on your team’s availability and how much agreement already exists about the membership strategy.

What if we do not track usage for every benefit?

I can analyze the benefits for which you have renewal and benefit-use records that can be matched. If usage is not tracked for a benefit, I cannot show its connection to renewal. Your leadership team can still decide whether that benefit belongs in the strategy. If it does, you can begin tracking its use so there is evidence to assess in a future renewal cycle.

What if we complete the process and our retention rate does not improve?

Retention by Design™ gives your team a membership strategy it can put into practice: a problem to solve, a path to the promised result, benefit decisions informed by your data, and benefits checked against the twelve standards. That is what the engagement delivers. Whether retention improves can only be assessed after the strategy is put into practice and members reach renewal. I would not promise a particular increase before those results exist.

Your next renewal cycle is coming.

Before it arrives, decide what your membership should make possible for members and design your benefits to deliver it.