Jeff De Cagna

Five Ideas Association Boards Must Embrace in 2023

It is a new year, and we must redouble our efforts to help association boards become more. For the rest of The Turbulent Twenties and the decades beyond, associations will need fit-for-purpose boards with the deep capabilities and unquestioned…

Which association orthodox beliefs will you confront in 2023?

As the fourth year of The Turbulent Twenties begins, association boards and staff partners can build immediate momentum for positive progress by confronting the orthodox beliefs that hold back both our community and its organizations. Orthodox…

Ending Generational Orthodoxy in Associations in the Turbulent Twenties

This article was published in the Winter 2022 issue of The Executive Magazine, the official publication of the California Society of Association Executives (CalSAE). If asked about my generational identification at the beginning of this century, the…

The Six Toughest Decisions Association Boards Must Make: Part II

Author’s Note: On Tuesday, December 6 at 2 pm EST, I will host a one-hour Zoom discussion session on “Exploring The Six Toughest Decisions Association Boards Must Make.” You can register for this free session here. I hope you will join your…

The Six Toughest Decisions Association Boards Must Make: Part I

As association decision-makers continue to navigate this decade’s next 1,000 days and seek the opportunity for their organizations to thrive, they will need to make a series of six tough decisions to anticipate and adapt to the unforgiving conditions…

The Next Definition of The Board’s Duty of Foresight

Note from Jeff: After taking an unexpectedly long hiatus from The Duty of Foresight column, it is a great pleasure to resume my writing here with a new article to challenge your thinking! My thanks to everyone at Association Adviser for this…

Five Pieces of Advice: My Closing Thoughts from the August 25 Fonteva Webinar

This afternoon, I participated as a panelist on a webinar hosted by Fonteva. With four panelists, there was not much time to fully explain the five pieces of advice I shared with webinar participants. With that in mind, I have written this post to…

Looking back from the last day of the decade: a thought experiment for association decision-makers

Last month, I posted the backcasting prompt pictured above to LinkedIn following my late June session at the Virginia Society of Association Executives Annual Conference in Virginia Beach. My sincere thanks to everyone who liked the original post.…

Jeff De Cagna on the problems of membership – Deep Dive [PODCAST INTERVIEW]

Membership is not going away, but it should not define how international associations build relationships with stakeholders who could, potentially, add great value to their organisations. So says Jeff De Cagna, aka The Association Contrarian, who…

The Ethical Dimensions of The Board’s Duty of Foresight: Part I

Author’s Note: This column is the first in a three-part series I will write on the ethical dimensions of the board’s duty of foresight. The columns in this series will be available as a free PDF eBook in mid-August. If you would like to be notified…

The Association Contrarian: associations don’t ‘belong’ to their members

As a follow-up to his first column, ami columnist Jeff De Cagna takes a scalpel to some of the traditional beliefs around association membership, cutting through three of the most common orthodoxies to reveal the problems that lurk…

Day 500: What Have You Learned?

Today is Day 500 of The Turbulent Twenties. To shape the more than 3,100 days remaining in this decade for the better, it is crucial for everyone who cares about the future of associations to reflect on what we have learned so far. Here are three…

“I fear a hard turn back to complacency”, The Association Contrarian [PODCAST INTERVIEW]

In this episode of Deep Dive, we talk to new AMI columnist Jeff De Cagna about how contrarian thinking can help reinvigorate associations with added purpose, why associations have a tendency to think conservatively (small ‘c’), why membership is one…

Ten Purposeful Provocations for Association Boards: Part II

In preparation for a presentation in February, I posted a short article on LinkedIn in which I shared ten purposeful provocations for association boards in 2021. This is Part II of a two-part series of columns in which I am expanding on the original…

The Association Contrarian: on being contrarian

Exclusive to AMI, this new column from Jeff De Cagna, has one, overarching mission: to provoke associations into thinking – not following trends, repeating fashionable buzzwords, or meekly cleaving to tradition, but using all the skills, knowledge…

Ten Purposeful Provocations for Association Boards: Part I

Last month, in preparation for a presentation, I posted a short article on LinkedIn in which I shared ten purposeful provocations for association boards in 2021. In this two-part series of columns, I want to expand on the original article and include…

One Year of Pandemic and Six More Questions for Association Decision-Makers

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 global pandemic. This date is not an anniversary to commemorate, but a key signpost to acknowledge as we strive to navigate an irrevocably-altered…

The Reinvention Mandate: Part III

NOTE FROM JEFF: This column is the third and last part of a three-part series on The Reinvention Mandate. You can find Part I here and Part II here. Also, I believe that Black Lives Matter. On December 31, 2021, the end of this calendar year, the…

Ten Purposeful Provocations for Association Boards in 2021

Download a PDF version of the Ten Purposeful Provocations visual shown above. With the future arriving with full force in 2020, the urgent challenge before association boards in 2021 is crystal clear: strengthen board performance to begin shaping a…

What Innovation Requires

In response to a global pandemic and its extraordinarily serious consequences in 2020, association decision-makers finally began to embrace innovation as a business necessity. For those of us who have been imploring boards and CEOs to take innovation…