Why RallyBoard?

This is an abridged essay originally written to a small group of RallyBoard thought partners in November, 2024.

A New Beginning

I started my last company, Mentor Collective, when I was only 24 years old. I stumbled into entrepreneurship while working a full-time job in Boston, MA. I never imagined that my pro bono side project helping local schools run mentoring programs would turn into a 10 year professional journey and an enterprise that employs 100+ professionals.  Many mistakes were made; many lessons were learned along the way.

Now, in my mid-30s, I feel compelled to do it all over again. There is nothing quite like entrepreneurship — a perspective my Cofounder Michael shares. We both spent much of 2024 considering a variety of career paths and every idea curved back to founding another mission-driven company.

My last company started by accident. I stumbled into entrepreneurship because of a lived experience, never truly reflecting on the audacity of our vision.

This time, by contrast, Michael and I are starting a business with clear intention and aspiration. In many ways this approach is scarier. We are entering the fray with eyes wide open, knowing how difficult it can be to manifest a new a social enterprise into the world. But the opportunity to carry forward the lessons of our last ventures is palpable as we kick things off. RallyBoard is a blank canvas on which we hope to merge our vision with the aspirations of our design partners.

Why RallyBoard?

The world is changing quickly, with new technology poised to transform the way we work and learn. While some professionals will adapt, many others may find their careers at risk due to a lack of future-ready skills. 

When an Internet's worth of knowledge is just a few AI prompts away, it is becoming clear that who you know matters more than what you know. Everyone with an internet connection will have access to information and automation tools, but rich, relevant relationships will become harder to nurture in a professional context. These deeper relationships are also a source of inspiration, motivation, and professional development.

While self-paced learning works for a portion of the workforce, we believe that true learning power lies in a curated community of practice. Learning in isolation can be challenging, but learning alongside friends and peers can be transformative.

This is why we have partnered with industry associations and professional societies. Association member networks are rich in shared experiences, and despite headwinds in attracting younger professionals, they continue to be vital sources of thought leadership ("what") and community ("who") for professionals across all sectors.

RallyBoard is being developed to enhance this fundamental value proposition—fostering professional development through the strength of peer collaboration.

What We Heard

Mike and I started talking to professional associations in late September 2024. We started with our networks and later turned to LinkedIn to source conversations with thought leaders across the industry. Two months later, we have now spoken with nearly 50 people across 30+ organizations.

We will share more reflections in coming updates, but here are three of the themes that really struck us:

1. Embattled value propositions

Industry professionals - particularly Millennials and GenZ - are no longer clamoring to become card-carrying association members. Members are weighing dues against low cost products like Reddit, Patreon, Discord, and LinkedIn. When free low-touch communities exist in droves, it is harder to sell the value of a paid membership to an industry association.

There is a generational shift within our membership. People no longer join for the sake of joining. Most activity is related to getting something in exchange for joining

- Former Association President (>15,000 members)

2. Business models are event centric

To my outsider eyes, it is hard not to see associations as an events business. Many leaders described their operations as tied to the seasonality of semi-annual meetings. Sponsors, member engagement,  and learning all seem to orbit around annual convenings. 

Don't get me wrong: I love a good conference. Annual meetings were the best way for my last company to engage with our community and we even hosted our own events to bring stakeholders together. With that said, it can be very challenging to deliver sustained value to members when they are trained to only find it at IRL events. Today's workforce expects to pursue connections and continuing education in the flow of their work, not "at next Spring's conference". 

This has us reflecting on how RallyBoard can support continuous member engagement in non-intrusive and inclusive ways.

We see a drop off in membership renewals after every annual event. It seems like some members are only engage with us to attend the annual meeting.

- VP of Memberships (>10,000 members)

3. Community (via tech) is hard

There are clearly two sides to the community coin. While every association viewed community as core to their value proposition, many were burned out on the buzzword. Most of this seemed to stem from mixed experiences launching online communities.

Whether it was Facebook groups, online forums, community Zoom calls, or mentoring programs, very few associations were satisfied with the reach and impact of their online community efforts. Most reported reaching less than 5% of their membership. 

I will likely write a post again on this topic because it resonates with my experience building Mentor Collective (an online mentoring company). My hot take? Community is not built on platforms, but it can be built with tech-enabled programming.

We have a members-only message board that gets very low traffic. There are so many free places for our members to post and consume content online, which undercuts the value of our community platform.

- Director of Learning (>20,000 members)

A Brighter Future

RallyBoard was founded to combat the loneliness epidemic and build a more skilled and connected workforce. Despite unprecedented access to information, countless professionals remain isolated, struggling to keep up with rapid technological changes. Associations sit at the nexus of these challenges with the network and thought leadership to drive transformative change.

In launching RallyBoard, we envision a future where vibrant learning communities drive professional development and ensure workers are equipped to thrive in a fast-evolving economy.

We hope you will join us on our journey.