Globalization is the worldwide movement toward greater economic, financial, trade, cultural, scientific and communications integration.

Executive Summary

For almost 30 years, GLOBALSTRAT has been collecting independent data on howinternational associations are approaching global membership, programs and engagement. This valuable information and insights are used to help associations to make better informed decisions when developing their international strategies and business plans.

According to the United Nations (UN), the world population is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050. As global standards of living continue to increase, far fewer people are living in absolute poverty and large “emergingmarket” populations with disposable income are growing significantly.

For associations, this scenario is extremely positive with major new markets that will need the types of benefits and services that associations are uniquely positioned to provide professional development, knowledge transfer, networking, education, standards, certifications, professional designations, and more.

With more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, the challenges for associations are daunting:

a.) how to identify which markets hold the greatest opportunities,

b.) determining which business models are best suited to address these specific markets,

c.) how to develop a proactive growth strategy that takes advantage of these opportunities.

GLOBALSTRAT has collected input from from nearly 700 participating trade and professional associations from more than 20 countries over the period 2013, 2016 and 2018. This summarized report compares the results over that period of time, helping to identify the trends and important factors that make the difference between successful international associations, and those that struggle to grow.

The Global Association Hubs Partnership supports relevant research on the globalization of associations. Download the survey summary report here, or request your personal copy of the full report by email to hb@associationhubs.org.