Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet United States and an advocate for racial justice and gender equity, inspired attendees with her thoughts on the power of language to acknowledge hurt and find healing during the Opening Keynote of the 2024 ASAE Annual Meeting. 

As a young girl struggling with a speech impediment, Gorman told how she found safety and felt her voice could be heard through her words on a page. While she often felt like an outsider looking in, poetry offered her power.

Poetry requires its creators to be metriculous and intentional with language. Poets, Gorman said, often have less space and less words but they are able to say more, likening it to using the smallest feather as the heaviest hammer.

While her words today offer a recognition of what humanity has experienced and a hope for the future, she instead said she sees herself as "a voice within a generation, not the voice of a generation."

Young people, she said, have been telling the truth and leading during periods of transformative change all throughout history. One of the differences from past generations is that while they were told they would change the world, today's young people, Gorman said, are told they have to save the world. That is something we have to all take part in, she said.

Gorman closed the session with a stirring read of her poem "What We Carry," a fitting tribute to this year's Annual Meeting theme: "In Unity, We Thrive."

Now more than ever before, associations are well informed about how effective their communications strategies are – or aren’t – with members. While the general ranking of communication challenges remained the same this year, there is a significant increase in percentages indicating more difficulty in the top two areas – generating non-dues revenues (65%) and communicating member benefits effectively (64%). Both were 7 and 8 percentage points higher than 2023, respectively.

Engaging young professionals and understanding member needs both continue to be challenges for more than half of the associations surveyed.

To read more about the challenges and opportunities faced by associations today, download and read the 2024 Association Benchmarking Report today for FREE!

When the Association Adviser Podcast relaunched earlier this summer, we kicked off the new season with a stellar first guest: Michelle Mason, FASAE, CAE, President & CEO of ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership. In her conversation with host and Naylor President & CEO Christine Shaw, Mason shared her own personal journey into association leadership, as well as ASAE’s vision for the future and the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. She also highlighted the significance of global partnerships and non-dues revenue for associations and shared valuable advice for future leaders in the association space.

"I believe that CEOs have the opportunity to encourage a diversity of thought to build trust and empowerment, particularly in today's environment," Mason said of today's association leaders. "And knowing that we have that opportunity, we should be able to make a place for all to feel welcome, valued. One of the learnings that I've had over my career is that diversity of thought is very important in the association community."

Listen to the episode now!

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