By Carla Kalogeridis, PAR

The conversations happening across the PAR community point to four common revenue challenges that association leaders — regardless of sector or size — are tackling in 2026. Here’s what we’re hearing and how RevUP 2026 is designed around it.

Challenge #1 — Capacity: Big Goals, Small Teams

Revenue responsibility is spread across more roles than ever, but the systems and culture to support that responsibility are still catching up. Overstretched teams are juggling legacy programs while trying to think creatively and launch new initiatives. Even when the commitment is strong, the bandwidth is simply not there.

"The greatest cost of an overstretched team isn't just burnout — it's opportunity cost,” says Jen Smith, PAR’s executive director. “When every day is spent maintaining yesterday's programs, there's no capacity to build tomorrow's member value. Eventually, associations stop leading the industries and professions they serve and start reacting to them."

PAR Tip: Hit pause, gather your team (across all departments), and run the Blank Calendar Test. If your association launched today — with the same mission, members, and resources, but nothing already on the calendar — what would you choose to build? The difference between that list and your current workload reveals where legacy has quietly replaced strategy.

RevUP 2026 session with solutions. Beyond Education Revenue: Learning as a Business Development Engine features leaders from EDUCAUSE, American Society of Civil Engineers, and NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement who will help you turn existing learning portfolios into revenue and insight engines instead of adding more programs.

Challenge #2 — Aligning Culture Around Revenue

Associations may have well-defined strategic plans, and yet a fragmented approach to generating revenue that is relegated to a small group of people. Revenue becomes "the sales team's responsibility" rather than a shared organizational priority, creating silos and limiting collaboration on new ideas. Staff who excel at education, advocacy, membership, or events may feel uncomfortable discussing business opportunities, even when they are best positioned to recognize them. Organizations are missing valuable opportunities because revenue conversations happen too late — or not at all.

"Revenue isn't a department — it's a culture,” says Sean Soth, founder and leadership advisory board chairman for PAR. “The healthiest associations have a strong belief that revenue generation is everyone’s job. That doesn’t mean everyone is out making sales calls and closing deals, but it does mean that all team members recognize how revenue helps them impact their missions and actively support revenue generation efforts.”

Soth adds when every employee understands how their work contributes to financial sustainability, revenue stops feeling transactional and starts becoming a natural outcome of delivering exceptional member experiences.

PAR Tip: Add this standing agenda item to every team meeting: “Where’s the opportunity?” Ask each department to share a member need they’ve observed and how the association could create value around it. Revenue often starts with recognizing unmet needs. Replace the phrase “sales opportunity” with “member value opportunity” to keep conversations grounded in mission and outcomes. And make sure you have an idea pipeline where any employee can submit concepts with revenue protentional — not everyone is comfortable pitching their idea at a meeting.

RevUP 2026 session with solutions. The Loyalty Revenue Model: What Commercial Programs Know About Earning and Keeping Member Dollars will feature Aramis Advisors’ introduction of a shared language and models to connect member value, mission impact, and sustainable revenue.

Challenge #3 — Aligning Strategy, Data, and Systems

Associations know they need to grow non-dues revenue, but their business development infrastructure hasn't kept pace with their ambitions. Revenue strategies are often informal, customer data lives in disconnected systems, and staff rely on spreadsheets or manual processes to manage prospects. Without clear visibility into the sales pipeline or reliable ROI data, leaders struggle to make informed decisions about where to invest time and resources.

"Growth isn't limited by ideas nearly as often as it's limited by visibility,” says Soth. “If you can't see your pipeline, measure what's working, or connect your data across departments, you're managing revenue by instinct instead of intelligence. The associations that grow consistently build systems that make good decisions repeatable — not dependent on heroic effort."

PAR Tip: Define a small set of revenue metrics that everyone understands and reviews together. If every department measures success differently, no one has a complete picture. Review the metrics monthly across the leadership team to keep strategy, operations, and business development aligned.

RevUP 2026 session with solutions. In Your Most Powerful Intent Data Doesn’t Come from Digital: Turn a 3‑Day Experience into an Always‑On Growth Engine, AVIXA and Bear Analytics will deliver actionable insights on capturing and using event intent signals to build a 365‑day pipeline engine with your existing tools.

Challenge #4 — Navigating Market and Economic Headwinds

Associations are operating in increasingly crowded and value-conscious environments. Members and sponsors are scrutinizing every dollar they spend, while niche communities, B2B providers, and AI-powered platforms are offering faster, more specialized alternatives. Standing out is less about offering the most programs and more about delivering value that members cannot find elsewhere and communicating that value with clarity and consistency.

"Associations compete with every source of knowledge, every online community, and every AI tool that promises instant answers,” says Smith. “The organizations that thrive won't win by offering more content. They'll win by delivering trusted expertise, specific and unique audience or industry data, meaningful relationships, and experiences people simply can't replicate with a search prompt."

PAR Tip: Ask your team this one question after every program or event: "What did attendees experience here that they couldn't have gotten from Google, LinkedIn, or AI?" If the answer isn't obvious, you've uncovered an opportunity to strengthen your association's unique value proposition. If you’re brave enough, add that question to your post-event survey.

RevUP 2026 session with solutions. WTF Just Happened? How to Stop Being Blindsided by Your Competition will showcase a practical competitive intelligence (CI) foundation and AI guardrails from Momentive Software designed to help lean teams monitor competitor moves and protect their positioning.

The Competitive Advantage of Community

These four challenges aren't signs that your association is falling behind — they're signs that the landscape is changing. RevUP 2026 is intentionally programmed as a toolkit for working on these challenges together as community.

Buoyed by peer experiences and real case studies, RevUP 2026 is built around the conversations you’re having and the questions you’re asking. Association leaders who recognize their own reality in these four challenges will find a community of peers at RevUP 2026 working through them and offering solutions that can be put into practice immediately.

 

Ready to turn your association's challenges into revenue excellence?
Register for the 2026 RevUP Summit today.