Associations typically hire association management companies to help support their mission and strategy. However, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) took a different approach earlier this month when it announced it had acquired the Grassley Group (TGG), an Iowa-based AMC.

NAIFA, which says the acquisition is part of a plan to better serve its members and streamline the organization, rebranded TGG as the NAIFA Midwest Office.

Being nimble and being willing to be bold and make changes to your business operations and corporate structure is an imperative in today’s world.

“What this does is it gives us at the national office an opportunity to start servicing state and local divisions of NAIFA directly ourselves,” said NAIFA CEO Kevin Mayeux, CAE. “Eventually, it gets to a certain point where we can have a much more professionalized staff across the country.”

NAIFA is a complex federation with a national office in the Washington, DC, area, 50 state-level chapters, and hundreds of local chapters nationwide, all of which operate in a semiautonomous structure, Mayeux explained. In fact, before the acquisition, TGG managed NAIFA’s Wisconsin, Iowa, California and greater Washington chapters.

Bringing TGG in house will give NAIFA more uniformity and consistency as an organization, one of the main goals of the NAIFA 20/20 Strategic Plan [PDF] that is currently being implemented.

That plan “has a primary goal of providing members a consistent experience in our delivery of messaging, as well as exceptional events, programs, and services,” Mayeux said in a press release. “Integrating the Grassley Group is another important step in the five-year implementation of NAIFA 20/20. We look forward to the expanded service offerings that will soon be available to NAIFA members across the country.”

NAIFA also hopes the NAIFA Midwest Office will open opportunities “to grow membership, improve association operations, increase nondues revenue, and build specialty centers and other new initiatives to bolster NAIFA’s quality member experience,” Mayeux said in a release.

To do all of this, NAIFA is integrating TGG’s 11-member staff into its fold. “I think they’re going to be a huge plus for our team because many of them worked with their various NAIFA clients at the state and local levels for several years,” Mayeux said. “They understand our organization; they just have a great attitude.”

Although the acquisition is a big move for NAIFA, Mayeux said it’s an important one.

“Being nimble and being willing to be bold and make changes to your business operations and corporate structure is an imperative in today’s world,” Mayeux said. “Members are expecting more and more out of us as associations, and the more we’re able to think outside of the box but stay focused on our core mission … the better off we’ll all be.”

(Memedozaslan/iStock/Getty Images Plus)