The Gist
Member expectations are rising faster than budgets. In 2025, your website isn’t just a communications tool—it’s the engine that drives renewals, registrations, and retention.
- Members expect on-demand everything.
- They want self-service portals for payments, profiles, and resources.
- Mobile usability matters more than ever—over 70% of members now access association sites from a phone.
- If your website and portal experience isn’t frictionless, your renewal rate will show it.
- Data privacy and compliance are non-negotiable
- State-level privacy laws (think California, Colorado, Connecticut) now affect national organizations.
- Collecting member data through non-secure forms or third-party widgets can expose you to liability.
- Audit how data moves between your CRM, email platform, and website.
- Integration beats innovation
- You don’t need new software—you need your existing systems talking to each other.
- Link your AMS or CRM with your website and event tools for a single source of truth.
- Dashboards that show renewals, registrations, and engagement in one place will save your staff hours each week.
- Accessibility equals professionalism
- Accessibility lawsuits are increasing, and WCAG 2.2 standards are now widely enforced.
- An accessible website isn’t just compliance—it signals respect for every member.
- Ongoing management is the new membership benefit
- Sites that aren’t maintained regularly lose trust—and search rank.
- Assign internal or external ownership for updates, backups, and analytics.
- The most effective organizations treat digital management as part of their operations, not an afterthought.
The takeaway
Members notice when digital systems work—and when they don’t. A well-managed, compliant, and connected membership website builds confidence in your organization and keeps renewals coming in.
