One organization needed to revamp their membership program, and in August of 2025, I took initiative for the membership committee and began managing the project. The program needed to be operationalized across many functions within the organization.

Decision-making ability was beyond my scope, but if I was leading the operationalization of this program, here is the process I would take:

Member Program Development

If I was given leadership over the membership development program revamp, this is a roadmap of what it would look like. This is primarily the first data-gathering phase, which would set up the organization for success in board-level discussions about the vision and mission of the organization later in 2026. This approach blends best practices of revenue operations with asset-based community development program management, to both design a membership organization that is operationally efficient and also drives impact.

This groundwork will help set clear parameters for the discussion and gain evidence-based clarity faster.

1. Set pilot parameters — Determine what exactly we’re trying to gain from the current membership pilot in process and how/when we will capture founder insights. Design the outcomes we will measure, what exactly we’re trying to answer, and establish feedback loops. Assign members of the team to join sessions throughout the year to distribute information and capture blind spots. Since it began without prior design, lessons learned will go toward the next pilot which will be clearly laid out.
2. Create calendar and communication cadence for the year — Scale back other activities according to other priorities while including high-value moments. Delegate responsibilities among the membership group for greater clarity and precision. Assess founder engagement gates. Bring in Communications Director to create messaging calendar and establish feedback loop.
3. Uplevel our stop-gap data hygiene practices — Implement a plan/practices for all to inform founder data while the longer-term solution is pending. This would include developing a team-wide method of conducting founder outreach on a regular basis to prevent alienating general membership.
4. Create an asset map and SWOT analysis — What is happening across the state already
5. Competitor matrix — Who are the competitors or near-competitors from state or other markets and how are they different/similar? What requirements do their members uphold? What’s their onboarding process?
6. Literary review — Compile research on founder outcomes to utilize the best insights about what is actually transformational in their journey. Comb through available past university projects. Interview staff. Review past member survey data for themes and patterns.
7. Map the founder journey — Apply all of the above information to create an iterative map of the founders’ journey locally to identify blockers and themes in different domains (mindset, systems, culture, etc depending on what’s in research)
8. Re-evaluate impact metrics and draft a theory of change — Out of these, what could we have the resources to measure reliably? Remove some that are not feasible.
   1. Determine whether we want to be social impact driven toward equity
   2. Or be a membership assoc. for founders who are already successful
   3. Compare and contrast
   4. Re-design second pilot according to theory of change
9. Let people vote with their feet — Use this founder journey map as point of conversation to identify where exactly stakeholders of different kinds see the biggest blockers and opportunities. Track these engagements as data points.

Present this work to the board as a launch pad for strategic discussions on the mission/vision.

From here, I would (2027)