As technology gives us new ways to link up, communicate and share ideas, our need to identify with a collective presence reflects our need to become more significant. Today, this need is being fulfilled by privately organized, managed and funded trade associations. If there ise anything that drives any venture to succeed, the principal motivation is profit - the commercial purpose for which any trade activity exists. Unless your primary reason for creating a trade association is to lobby issues in Washington, your association's principal objective should more or less focus on information sharing. If you are creating a trade association as a forum for its memgbers to share ideas about their trade, it is essential that you provide your members this vehicle by which they can communicate, maybe even interact.
Many associations are lucky to break even on membership dues alone.
To guarantee its healthy existence, its financial foundations should expand beyond being exclusively dependent on membership dues.