Most associations share a common goal of making a large impact on their respective industries. No matter your specialty, at some point or another, your organization will likely aim to scale its programs in hopes of reaching more people and enacting more positive change.
To grow your association’s programs, you need to reframe your mindset and strategy. Scaling requires making your organization more efficient as a whole—and that includes budgeting. This guide will help you transform your financial management approach to ensure it supports confident, consistent growth.
If you want to truly grow your association, you can’t simply look at last year’s budget and increase it by a certain percentage. Let’s say you want to add 500 participants to your mentorship program. While you’ll need to promote your program, marketing isn’t the only cost you’ll incur.
Instead, you must budget for everything associated with acquiring, managing, and engaging those 500 new participants, such as:
Additionally, more members in general means higher overhead costs. For instance, you may need to hire more support staff to handle general inquiries and software troubleshooting, cover more credit card processing fees for dues payments, and spend more on churn management.
While many organizations try to limit overhead as much as possible, Strategic Association Solutions’ accounting for nonprofits guide explains that “you can’t properly pursue your mission without putting enough funding toward the behind-the-scenes processes that keep your organization running smoothly.” Rather than ignoring or stifling these costs, factor them in when you’re expanding your organization to maintain momentum and membership quality as you scale.
Many associations host in-person events to strengthen connections and build community. These types of events scale linearly; the more people you host, the more expensive your events will be. You’ll need a larger venue, more staff, and more speakers or activities, which all introduce additional costs.
On the other hand, digital assets scale exponentially, meaning you can build them once and distribute them indefinitely. While you shouldn’t by any means stop hosting in-person events, consider allocating more funding toward digital assets. For every dollar or so you spend on a live event, budget about $0.25 or so to repackage that content online, in the form of:
Developing these materials may require hiring video editors, copywriters, and developers to ensure the content is professional and accessible. Whether you create these assets in-house or outsource development, prioritize digital accessibility.
As Fíonta’s digital accessibility for associations guide explains, “Accessibility is relevant to almost every part of your association’s online presence. It’s imperative that each member can access your resources and benefits, attend your events, navigate your website, and have consistent, positive experiences every time they interact with your organization.” Common digital accessibility best practices include adding captions to videos, including alternative text for images, and leveraging contextual links with descriptive anchor text.
Data silos—or data stuck in different software systems that don’t connect—inhibit scaling and growth. On the flip side, if key platforms like your learning management system (LMS) and association management software (AMS) integrate, you can spend less time on manual data entry and more time strategizing how to expand your impact.
While some software solutions have native integrations, others might not connect as easily. In these situations, add an integration development line item to new program budgets. That way, you’ll have funds set aside to compensate a developer or invest in external integration services like Zapier.
For example, a developer may help you enable single sign-on (SSO), which allows members to log in once and seamlessly use all tools within your association’s ecosystem. This connection between platforms also lessens administrative burden, as members are less likely to forget their passwords and submit support tickets.
When scaling a new program, you don’t want to invest too much into something you’re not sure will work. Instead of immediately ramping up a new offering, allocate 10% of the program’s budget for a minimum viable product phase, which might look like:
Then, wait to release the remaining 90% of your program budget until your test run reaches specific key performance indicators (KPIs) you determine ahead of time. For example, KPIs for a new learning program may look like the number of course completions, return frequency, and CE credit utilization rate. This agile finance approach empowers you to test new ideas without excessive spending and risk.
You can’t scale your impact if you don’t first understand your existing impact. Waiting for your annual report to collect impact data and understand if a new program is working will slow down the scaling process.
While you likely already budget for data storage, you might not consider the costs associated with data intelligence. To assess your programs, allocate funds toward business intelligence, allowing you to create (or hire someone to develop) custom dashboards with program KPIs.
By investing in data visualization, you enable real-time data analysis. As a result, staff members across the organization can unlock insights into any program at any time, allowing your team to adjust your association’s strategy accordingly without waiting for specific benchmarks or times of year to pass.
Scaling your programs can be daunting, but when you budget strategically for the proper infrastructure, you can grow any offering sustainably. Involve program staff heavily in annual budgeting conversations so they can lend their perspectives and help the rest of your team better understand each program’s needs and goals.
Whether managing CME for physicians or supporting member growth, Oasis LMS helps deliver high-impact education efficiently and at scale.
Copyright © 2025 Oasis-LMS. All Rights Reserved.