What ASAE's first State of Associations report says about your meeting

Two numbers that don't sit well together

ASAE released its first State of Associations report this spring, built from a year of pulse polls of CEOs and senior association executives. Most of the coverage led with the headline finding: 38.5% of CEOs report financial decline, against roughly 10% reporting improvement.

The pair of numbers underneath that headline is more useful if you run a program. Among the associations in decline, 68.83% named meetings revenue as a contributing factor. That makes the meeting the most-cited source of financial trouble in the sector, ahead of membership dues at 64.93%, sponsorship at 46.75%, and donations at 22.07%.

And yet: about 29% of associations reported actively changing their meetings strategy this year. The year before, 31% did. The revenue problem is concentrated in the event, and seven in ten organizations are running the same event anyway.

What the adapting third is doing

The report describes the changes among associations that are moving, and none of them are exotic. Hybrid and regional formats that reach members who never travel to a national meeting. Pricing adjustments. Sponsor and exhibitor redesign, including more flexible tiers and rethought expo experiences. Some associations are finding that a smaller, sharply focused event outperforms a large one that tries to serve every segment at once.

Read the list twice and a pattern shows up. Almost every move either extends the meeting beyond its dates or gives sponsors more surfaces than a booth. Both point at the same underlying asset, which is the content the meeting already produces.

An annual meeting with a few hundred sessions and posters generates more member-facing material in four days than most association education programs produce in a year. At most organizations that material has a shelf life of one weekend. The sessions end, the poster hall comes down, and the association goes back to selling next year's registration with last year's science sitting in a drive nobody opens.

The diversification finding, without the buzzword

The report's revenue-response numbers are genuinely striking: 63.8% of associations pursuing partnerships, 61.7% diversifying revenue, 51.6% launching new offerings. Dues increases more than doubled year over year, which sits uncomfortably next to the other headline finding, that member retention and engagement is the sector's top challenge, cited by nearly a third of respondents. Raising the price of membership while members question its value is a move you make when the alternatives look expensive.

Here is the thing. For most associations the cheapest new offering is not new at all. A searchable library of recorded sessions. A poster gallery that stays open after the hall closes. Sponsorship placements on the content members return to between meetings, priced separately from the booth. Education credit packaged around content that already cleared committee review. None of that requires inventing a product. It requires treating the meeting's output as inventory instead of exhaust.

We built Sessionboard's content tools around that premise, so I'll flag the interest openly. But the argument doesn't depend on our product. It depends on the ASAE data: the meeting is where the money is leaking, and the meeting is also the asset with the most unbuilt surface.

What I'd take to your next board conversation

The report frames the sector's position through a leadership lens, and board conversations about it will mostly stay at the level of strategy language. Bring it down a level. Three questions get at whether your organization is in the adapting third or the waiting majority.

What happens to the meeting's content on the Monday after? If the answer is "it goes in a folder," there is a member-value and sponsorship surface going unbuilt while the board debates a dues increase.

What can a sponsor buy from you besides physical space? Sponsorship was cited as a decline factor by nearly half of struggling associations. Sponsors have not stopped spending on reaching your members. They have gotten less interested in one of the formats.

And which members touched the association in the last ninety days? Not opened an email. Touched: searched the library, shared a session, asked an author a question. The retention finding and the meetings finding are the same finding at two different points in the member's year.

The full report is a free download from ASAE, and it deserves a closer read than the press-release bullets. The sector data is sobering. The gap between the 69% and the 29% is where the next few years get decided.

FAQ

What is the ASAE State of Associations report?

ASAE's inaugural State of the Association Sector Report, released in spring 2026, draws on a year of pulse polls of association CEOs and senior executives. It covers financial performance, meetings trends, workforce, advocacy, and AI adoption, and is a free download from ASAE.

What did the ASAE report find about meetings revenue?

Meetings are the most-cited source of financial decline. Among associations reporting decline, 68.83% named meetings revenue as a contributing factor, ahead of membership (64.93%), sponsorship (46.75%), and donations (22.07%), driven by falling attendance including reduced international participation.

How many associations are changing their meetings strategy?

About 29% reported actively changing their meetings strategy in 2026, nearly the same share as the 31% who did so in 2025. Most associations are feeling the pressure without yet restructuring the event that carries it.

What are associations doing about revenue pressure?

Per the report, 63.8% are pursuing partnerships, 61.7% are diversifying revenue, and 51.6% are creating new offerings. Dues increases more than doubled year over year, which is the lever most likely to aggravate the sector's other top problem, retention.

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