Some year, huh?

I don’t mean to be glib—for a lot of associations, 2025 signaled a moment when business as usual has ended, which is always troubling. The arrival of the Trump administration—and with it the freezing or elimination of federal funding, a direct assault on DEI, and saber-rattling around nonprofitdom itself—has forced a lot of associations to rethink whether their processes and programs are fit for purpose.

If there’s a silver lining in any of this, it’s in a phrase that came up often when I’ve spoken with association leaders and experts this year: We’ve been here before. The Great Recession of the late oughts prompted associations to contemplate mergers and rethink membership models; the COVID-19 pandemic launched a similar reckoning around meetings, remote work, and baseline care for members and staff. Associations have gotten sharper about what to keep and what to sunset; they’ve often been metaphorized as slow-moving ships, but maybe it’s time to sunset that phrase too.

Of course, there’s still work to be done. Below are a few of the themes that emerged for me this year. Please share yours in the comments. Best wishes to your organizations and your people in 2026.

Advocacy voices have gotten louder. The government shutdown in the fall put a halt to a lot of association efforts, and delivered hardships to many members. And the Trump administration’s dismantling of multiple federal agencies, along with the Department of Health and Human Services’ attacks on best-practice public-health protocols, especially around vaccination, has given association advocacy sharper elbows, including a call by multiple medical organizations for the resignation of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As the stakes increase for organization, their efforts in Congress and statehouses will likely increase. 

AI is a given. Now what? Generative AI isn’t a kill-all, but nor is it a cure-all, and 2025 was a year when organizations worked to determine how to better integrate it into their work. More than just pumping out marketing copy, AI is capable of developing robust meeting analysis, basic document vetting, and rapid assembling of expertise. That’s put more pressure on associations to make sure their people are aware of the possibilities, if only to forestall the kinds of confusion and ethical challenges that AI can bring. As Sidecar’s Erica Salm Rench put it, “People who are AI-knowledgeable will replace the people that are not.”

Boards have to step up more than ever. “Being OK is no longer good enough,” said association leadership veteran Richard Yep, FASAE, CAE, said at the Annual Meeting in Los Angeles about governance now. Boards are asked to do more, faster, and with closer attention to strategy. But it’s happening at a time when strategic thinking and planning is being disrupted. Associations need to provide a better pipeline for volunteer pipelines, and get smarter about big-picture thinking. As Jeff De Cagna put it: “Board performance has not really kept pace, and we need to address that right away. Not just for where we are now, but as we look toward the next decade. Things continue to get more intense, and that’s not going to change.”