MBA: Mucho Bureaucracy Association

I love irony, but I don't understand this.

For an association that represents a progressive, 21st-century, techno-savvy cause, the Media Bloggers Association's (MBA) membership application process is ironically old-school. One applicant still hasn't heard about the status of his MBA membership six months after applying. The MBA asks its members to post "regularly and frequently." Shouldn't the MBA pay just as much attention to its membership applicants?

Approval of membership applications should be delegated to the staff, or if one doesn't exist, to a board officer. I know of some large associations that still haven't delegated the administrative duty of approving memberships to the staff. They understand that failure to approve new members in a timely manner is a recipe for poor membership retention. So the staffs of these associations have expedited the membership process by getting permission from the board to approve memberships on a provisional basis, and having the board ratify the new memberships in the form of an item on the consent agenda at the subsequent board meeting.

In this age of instant gratification, anything longer than a few days to approve a new membership increasingly strikes me as unacceptable.

Tagged: Association Management Associations CAE Certified Association Executive Media Bloggers Association membership