Association Headquarters

Case Studies

This collection of case studies outlines how AH helped several client partners meet real-world challenges.

From a Stand-alone to an AMC
Since our founding in 1978, AH has prided itself on housing the expertise of various association management professionals under one roof.  Our comprehensive association management business model was alluring to the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA).  Prior to AMCA’s move to AH in 2006, the association had operated as a self-managed association.

Throughout a majority of AMCA’s history, mosquito control professionals had served in the executive director role. Since their level of involvement was fairly limited, AMCA remained stagnant and unable to truly flourish. 

Even after an association management professional, Sarah Gazi, CAE, took the helm as Executive Director, she found that limited resources, coupled with the jack-of-all trades post, left her with little time for day-to-day management of AMCA.  If her computer went awry, Gazi had to swap her executive director hat for an IT hat and fix it.

Gazi, who remains as AMCA’s Executive Director, says the transition to AH breathed new life into the association. Partnering with AH provided a sense of stability that AMCA had not experienced previously, and allowed the association’s future to be strategically mapped out and professionally implemented. Read More

Taking Membership and Fundraising to New Heights
When the International Pediatric Transplant Association (IPTA) first became a partner of Association Headquarters in 2002, membership was low and the organization was greatly in need of outside funding.  Dedicated to advancing the science and practice of pediatric transplantation worldwide, IPTA wanted to raise its profile to attract more members and gain greater financial support from pharmaceutical companies.
With AH’s help, IPTA created a membership recruitment and retention campaign followed by a program aimed at getting annual financial support. As a result of the membership campaign, the number of members tripled in only five years, rising from the 225 in 2002 to 640 in 2007.

Since the annual fundraising campaign began in 2004, average annual support has reached $200,000. Prior to the campaign, IPTA brought in $300,000 in meeting support. That means the campaign resulted in a 25% increase in outside funding over a two-year period.  Read More

Awareness Campaign
When Association Headquarters conducted a membership survey for the American Society of Transplantation, results showed the Society had a very broad and diverse group of members from around the globe; however, nonmembers did not realize that. The Society, which is dedicated to advancing the field of transplantation through the promotion of research, education, advocacy, and organ donation to improve patient care, had been founded 25 years ago to represent transplant physicians and surgeons. Since that time, membership had been expanded to include nurses, pharmacists, researchers, and transplant coordinators, but the perception that membership was limited kept many of the world’s eligible transplant professionals from joining the society. To combat this view, Association Headquarters’ launched a campaign through its strategic marketing partner to show the many faces of AST members. Read More