Book review: Exploring the ‘art’ of membership
Reviewing a short – but vital – book from Annabel Dunstan for Membership leaders.
Following a recommendation on LinkedIn, I picked up a short – but vital – book from Annabel Dunstan for Membership leaders. The Art of Membership provides insights from her work over the last three decades with membership organisations.
Subtitled, “lessons from listening to thousands of members”, the book provides an overview of how to create conditions for success and will be vital reading for anyone leading efforts to grow, retain or lead a membership organisation. This of course includes communication, marketing and engagement leads.
Heavily focused on realistic, practical, and tangible wins, it offers a range of ideas and solutions that could be easily picked up by membership organisations to build trust, deepen connection, and drive long-term engagement.
One of the core arguments of the book is that customer satisfaction should be the foundation of any approach, and Dunstan provides a number of examples of how that can be built, starting with a great member onboarding process. This led me to reflect on my time at a number of membership organisations where siloed approaches simply don’t yield results – you have your engagement experts in your comms teams, use them!
You can find out more about the book online below. Working at a senior level in membership? Then you need to read this today!
Responding to major government announcements
Explore my Discussion Paper sharing insights from nearly 20 years of responding to major government announcements.
Illustration: ChatGPT
My heart went out to the communication teams responding to the Spending Review 2025 last week. It’s not always easy to get it right and the time pressures are significant.
My mind went back to some of the trickier announcements I’ve worked on – where the CEO was held up at an external meeting making sign-off impossible, and one where one paragraph buried deep in the Budget document opened up a fundamental shift in how an entire sector operates.
With 20 years experience of responding to formal Government announcements going all the way back to Gordon Brown’s time as Chancellor, as well as extensive experience of responding on behalf of Membership organisations, I felt that it was a great opportunity to share some of the learnings and insights I’ve gleaned along the way.
I’ve pulled these together into a short and informal Discussion Paper which will be of interest to communication leads, heads of policy, and CEOs. Mixing strategic analysis with practical advice and some great examples from organisations responding to last week’s Spending Review, it’s not meant to provide a one-size fits all blueprint, but rather inspire organisations to find their own approaches.
I’ve written it to be engaging and informative, so hopefully it won’t be too difficult to digest, but the key takeaways are:
Proactive planning is essential – if you’re not ready with a plan, you won’t have an impact.
Major announcements provide an excellent opportunity to leverage your policy work to stakeholders or members.
You need to adapt to what I’ve called, ‘the pre-announcement era’. Major announcements are no longer just about the day itself.
On the day, a timely media response should be prioritised. Don’t miss the opportunity!
Tailor content for your audiences – make the most of the modern communication options available to you.
The Discussion Paper is available to download below. If you want to explore how your organisation can make the most of major Government announcements, or any aspect of corporate communications, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.