American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR)

American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR)

444 N. Capitol Street, NW
Suite 846
Washington, DC 20001
202-387-1968
[www.aamr.org]
Contact: M. Doreen Croser, Executive Director

CEO: M. Doreen Croser
Budget: $2.3 Million
Staff Size: 11

Contact: Sandra R Gordon, Director, Public and Media Relations
Contact, alternate: Teena T Austin, Manager, Public Relations


CEO: William W Tipton Jr, MD
Budget: $1.7 million
Staff Size: 7+

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Plexus Consulting Group, LLC
1620 Eye Street, NW
Suite 210
Washington, DC 20006
Phone:  202-785-8940
Fax:      202-785-8949
Email:   info@plexusconsulting.com

Vital Stats:

The American Association of Mental Retardation (AAMR) has 9,500 members including doctors, nurses, direct care providers, members of religious and civic organizations, government officials, self-advocates and family members of people who have mental retardation.

The Challenge | The Solution | The Process | Unintended Consequences | Unforseen Benefits | Measurements & Results | Lessons Learned

The Challenge

How to determine what changes AAMR needed to make to address both a gradual membership and dues decline and a drop-off in membership among younger age groups?

The AAMR undertakes thorough strategic planning exercises every three years to ensure the Association and its programs are still on track. During the last two decades, the AAMR had seen its membership numbers and dues revenues gradually decline as rival organizations sprang up and as individuals and organizations cut back on the number of associations to which they belonged.

AAMR's leadership was also aware of an alarming demographic trend that identified an abrupt drop-off in membership among the younger age groups. They recognized that as older members would begin to retire, this trend signaled a potentially severe problem for the AAMR in the coming decade. Apart from these concerns, membership services and programs were stable, membership attrition was low, and both staff morale and member satisfaction appeared to be high.

The Solution

By successfully identifying the galvanizing force that kept its diverse membership together, the strategic planning process helped AAMR to:

• Tap into the "soul" of its membership
• Re-discover its purpose
• Address potential challenges
• Defuse threats to its effectiveness and relevance to core members

AAMR's membership is exceedingly diverse, ranging from mental health professionals to the clergy. By going through a research-based strategic review process, AAMR discovered that:

• This galvanizing force was the Association's core identity
• AAMR's mission was to serve those concerned with the issue of mental retardation regardless of how they personally or professionally fit into the equation
  

The Process

AAMR's outsourced the strategic planning process to Plexus Consulting Group, and the process was conducted in three steps:

1. A written survey to members and non-members to determine their professional needs and concerns as well as how the AAMR, its staff and services were perceived and valued
2. Compilation of survey results were fed into two focus group sessions and into one-on-one interviews with thirteen key opinion leaders
3. The combined results of this quantitative and qualitative research were then compiled and presented to AAMR's strategic planning committee

The purpose of the focus groups and one-on-one interviews was to obtain a qualitative analysis of the survey results along with suggestions on alternative courses of action. This process allowed AAMR to begin prioritization of its strategic objectives.

The survey findings were the equivalent of a "straight-A" report card:

• The response rate was 22 percent, which is unusually high for this sort of written survey -- the sign of a high level of interest
• 88 percent of its members rated the quality of services offered by AAMR as "Good" or higher
• 74 percent were "Very Satisfied" or "Satisfied" overall with AAMR
• 73 percent felt the value they received matched or exceeded the cost of AAMR dues

But some results were cause for concern. The survey:

• Confirmed the alarming demographic trends in the AAMR's membership
• Identified that the association was too heavily weighted in favor of a centralized, national structure when in fact there was a great membership service need at the state and local levels
• Revealed that many of the Association's divisions, which are organized according to professional discipline, were weak and their expertise was underutilized
  

The focus group sessions and one-on-one interviews also raised the following questions relating to the Association's identity:

• Should it be dedicated to the needs of the professionals who serve those with mental retardation?
• Should it be directed to those who have mental retardation?
• Even the appropriateness of the term "mental retardation" was questioned. What should this all-important consumer group be called?

Also, with at least 14 different types of backgrounds represented within the membership, and the bulk of the membership falling into six different categories, serving customer needs presented a potentially serious resource allocation problem:

• Only two out of five publications were voted by the majority of members as being of "high importance" to them
• Similarly weak showings held for AAMR's education and training programs as well as other benefits and services
• Significantly, members responded that they did not consider the AAMR as their primary professional association
  

Unforeseen Benefits

In October of 1998, AAMR held a Future Visions Initiative Conference to review the results of The Strategic Planning Report and discuss the future of the Association. Discussions yielded the following unexpected benefits:

• Newfound sense of purpose, energy and dynamism
• Proposed name change

Not incidentally, it was recommended that the association rename itself as the American Association on Intellectual Disabilities (AAID) to make it more attuned to their membership needs and sensitive to the self-image of the principal audience that the association is intended to serve.

Proposed Redefinition of Mission
"The American Association on Intellectual Disabilities (AAID) promotes global development and dissemination of progressive policies, sound research, effective practices and universal human rights for people with intellectual disabilities."

Organizational Change
After reviewing all programs, AAMR decision-makers reconceived the Association's structure to bring it more in line with the newly-defined need to serve both international and local advocacy roles


Measurements & Results

At the very least, the findings from the survey comments and focus group sessions would be an indication of an unstable membership base. Yet the AAMR's membership is unusually loyal, with an average membership length of nearly 12 years. As noted below, whatever the member's background, be they health care professionals, clergy, or government administrators, they all ultimately were there because of a common interest. The focus then should not have been on them as individuals/professionals but on what has drawn them together.

This reorientation of focus allowed the board to see everything in a new light, and the results were dramatic. With the realization that the AAMR was an "issues" organization the Board had come full circle back to the Association's roots and purpose. The Board realized where the "soul" of the organization lay, and that realization was like uncorking a bottle of pent-up creativity and consensus.

Lessons Learned

AAMR realized that being a provider of products and services, of which there were many in the marketplace, represented only one dimension of an association or business. Instead, AAMR felt it a successful organization could also be measured by:

• Inspiring its members and staff into feeling that they make a difference by belonging
• Reinforcing the idea that (beyond being an efficient money-making operation) a greater purpose was being served

"Know your customers."

As the saying goes, if you don't meet your customers' needs, someone else will. In prior strategic planning sessions, AAMR was encouraged to think of their membership as "customers" without becoming sentimental or talking about their organization's "soul." While AAMR had taken this advice to heart, it did not work.

Ultimately, the AAMR's members were interested simply in the issues surrounding mental retardation and wanted to support an organization that is actively addressing these issues. The AAMR was not a professional association serving the needs of its members or customers. It was in fact an "issues" organization, similar to a political coalition or a nonprofit serving a social purpose or cause.

The AAMR discovered that the key to unlocking many of the strategic questions facing their organization lay in the answer to one question - the one in which members were asked to rank the "Main" reason for belonging - where was the organization's "soul?"