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If your association already has a member app, you probably don't need another article explaining why mobile matters. You've made that decision. You've invested in a platform, introduced it to your members, integrated it into your wider digital ecosystem and established mobile as part of the member experience.
A more useful question is whether the app you have today is still delivering everything you need from it.
That's an important distinction. Associations invest considerable time, expertise and budget in creating value for their members, from specialist content and professional publications to learning, community, events, career resources and services that may be unique to a particular profession or sector. Yet creating that value and ensuring members experience it are not necessarily the same thing.
That gap matters at a time when US associations continue to face pressure around retention, growth and demonstrating the value of membership. It also changes the way we should think about digital investment. The answer isn't automatically to create more content, add more platforms or introduce more features. Sometimes the greater opportunity is to help members discover and use more of the value the association has already created.
For an organisation that already has an established member app, that leads to a different conversation. Rather than asking whether the app works, it may be more useful to ask whether it is still the best expression of the member experience you want to provide next.
There are three questions that can help uncover the answer.
Most associations don't have a shortage of valuable content. In fact, the opposite is often true.
Over time, content and services accumulate across an increasingly complex digital ecosystem. News and insight sit on the website. Conversations take place within the online community. Learning sits within the LMS. Journals and magazines may live on separate publishing platforms. Videos are hosted on YouTube or Vimeo, podcasts through another provider, jobs within a career platform and events somewhere else again.
There may be perfectly good reasons for that architecture. Each platform may perform its individual role extremely well. But organisational architecture and member experience are two different things.
From the member's perspective, finding something valuable can mean knowing that it exists in the first place, remembering where it lives and then actively going there to find it. That creates a discovery problem. The association may be creating considerable value, but some of it remains effectively hidden from the very people it was created for.
Digital behaviour has changed too. People have become accustomed to experiences that surface what is new, interesting or relevant without requiring them to search multiple destinations. A recent association member experience study found that 76% of members want a personalized, social-media-like feed, while 79% want mobile access. The important point isn't that every association should try to recreate a social network. It's that expectations around discovery have changed.
That raises a useful question for any association with a mature digital estate: how much value are you already creating that members simply aren't finding?
This is the problem Pulse within the Cantarus MemConnect app is designed to address.
Pulse can bring content from across an association's existing digital ecosystem into one continuous feed. That can include content from websites and news, communities, learning platforms, journals and magazines, podcasts and video, jobs and other relevant sources.
The distinction isn't simply that it provides a feed. Many member apps can provide feeds. The more interesting difference is what happens when content that would otherwise be separated by source can be brought together into one discovery experience.
Members don't necessarily need to know whether an interesting article originated on the website, whether a discussion is taking place in the community or whether a useful resource sits within another platform before they can discover it. The underlying systems can continue doing their jobs, while the app provides a simpler way to encounter the value contained within them.
That can change the role of the app itself. Rather than becoming another digital destination that members have to remember to visit, it can become an entry point into the wider value of membership.
You're already creating the value. The question is whether your members are finding it.
For many associations, publications occupy a particularly important place within the member proposition. They aren't simply another communications channel. A long-established journal, professional magazine, research publication or body of technical guidance can represent intellectual property, professional authority, organisational heritage and a significant member benefit. In some cases, publications also create important commercial value.
That makes the quality of the digital experience surrounding them worth examining.
The publishing landscape has changed significantly, but there is still a tendency to equate making a publication available digitally with creating a digital publication experience. The two aren't necessarily the same.
A PDF or digital replica can make content accessible online. A digital magazine can give it a home within an app. Both may be perfectly appropriate in the right circumstances. But digital publishing also creates opportunities that go considerably further than reproducing a print experience on a screen.
Content can be designed for mobile consumption rather than simply scaled to fit it. Articles can become easier to search, discover and navigate. Multimedia can complement written editorial. Members can bookmark useful material and return to it later, or access content offline when connectivity isn't available. Accessibility can be considered as part of the experience rather than as an afterthought. Publication content can also sit more naturally alongside the other information and services members use.
There is an organisational benefit too. A richer digital publishing environment can provide greater insight into what people read and engage with. Instead of knowing primarily that a publication was distributed or downloaded, associations can begin to understand which subjects, articles and formats are attracting attention. That insight can inform future editorial decisions and help demonstrate how publication investment contributes to member value.
This is why the question shouldn't simply be “Can our members access our publications through the app?”
It should be “Is the digital experience doing justice to the value of the publication itself?”
Digital Publications within the Cantarus MemConnect app are designed around that broader opportunity. Magazines, journals and professional resources can become part of the wider mobile member experience rather than sitting in a separate digital destination.
A member might discover an article while browsing other content, save something particularly relevant to return to later, continue reading while offline and then move naturally into related resources elsewhere within the association's digital ecosystem. The publication becomes more closely connected to the ongoing member relationship.
Our work around digital publishing has reinforced an important principle: access isn't the same as experience. A publication can technically be digital while still leaving much of the potential of digital publishing unexplored.
For associations investing heavily in specialist editorial, research or professional publications, that's not a minor distinction. If the publication is one of the reasons people value their membership, its digital experience should reflect that importance.
The opportunity isn't simply to digitize the publication. It's to make an important member asset work harder for both the member and the association.
For one US-based professional association, publications were a major reason for choosing the Cantarus MemConnect app as its first member app. The association needed more than a place to host PDFs or point members towards a resource library; it wanted a richer mobile experience for journal and publication content, designed around how members access specialist, technical and research-led material.
That distinction mattered because the association needed a publishing experience its alternative option could not provide. Its journal carried an additional subscription fee, meaning only a subset of members should be able to access it, while others needed to be prompted towards the subscription. The Cantarus MemConnect app could support both: protecting access for eligible members and promoting the subscription to those who did not yet have it.
For publication-rich associations, that is the difference between simply making content available and creating a digital publication experience that reflects the value, permissions and commercial model around the content itself.
There is a natural degree of commonality between association apps. Members may expect access to content, notifications, profile information and other familiar capabilities, and a mature product should provide a strong foundation of proven functionality.
But associations themselves aren't interchangeable.
A medical society doesn't provide the same member experience as a trade association. A professional body may have requirements that don't exist within a charitable membership organisation. Even two associations operating within the same sector may have different member journeys, services and sources of value.
That raises a limitation with evaluating app platforms primarily through feature lists. Feature comparisons are useful for establishing whether a platform meets baseline requirements, but they don't necessarily tell you whether it can support the thing that makes your organisation particularly valuable.
There may be a specialist professional tool your members need. A particular journey connected to accreditation or professional practice. A resource unique to your field. A service that would make sense to nobody outside your association but could be incredibly valuable to the people within it.
If the platform only allows organisations to configure a predetermined set of capabilities, those ideas eventually encounter a boundary.
That's why one of the most interesting questions an association can ask isn't “What features does this app have?”
It's “What would we build if our app wasn't limited to a standard feature list?”
The Cantarus MemConnect app combines proven product functionality with the ability to create custom functionality around the requirements of an association.
That distinction matters.
Configuration allows an organisation to adapt an existing capability to its requirements. Custom functionality creates the opportunity to go further: to develop a specialist tool, member journey, interaction or service because it solves a particular problem for that association and its members.
It doesn't mean everything should be bespoke. Far from it. There is little value in custom-building something a mature product already does well. The value of extensibility is having the option to go beyond the standard product when there is a genuine member or organisational reason to do so.
That changes the buying conversation.
Instead of asking which platform has the longest list of standard features, an association can ask what it would like its member experience to make possible in the future.
And that matters because the things that make an association distinctive shouldn't disappear simply because the member experience has moved onto a screen.
One US-based professional association wanted to modernize their physical flash cards used to study for their certifications. Instead of carrying around an inch thick bundle of cards, the Cantarus MemConnect app gave students the ability to study on their device, with taps to flip the card and swipes to move to the next.
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One of the understandable concerns about changing an established member app is what happens to everything connected to it.
Associations may already have significant investments in an AMS, CMS, LMS, community platform, publishing technology and other specialist systems. Replacing an app shouldn't automatically trigger a wholesale replacement of technology that is already doing its job.
Integration therefore matters, but not because integration itself is unusual. Modern association platforms are expected to connect with other systems, and it would be misleading to present that capability alone as a reason to switch.
The more useful question is what those connections make possible for the member.
If content and services live across several systems, the underlying technology can remain distributed while the member experience becomes more coherent. An existing community, for example, doesn't necessarily need to be replaced for relevant activity to become part of a wider app experience. The same principle applies to learning, content and other established platforms.
The systems can continue doing what they do well behind the scenes. Members don't necessarily need to experience the same organisational boundaries at the front end.
Keep the technology that works. Make more of its value available to your members.
Of course, none of this removes an important reality: changing an established member app takes work.
An organisation has already invested in implementation. Teams understand the platform. Integrations have been created. Members have downloaded the app and learned how to use it. There may be established processes for managing content, releases and support.
Those are real investments, and replacing an app for a handful of marginal improvements is unlikely to make sense.
There needs to be something worthwhile on the other side.
Perhaps members could discover valuable content that is currently fragmented across different destinations. Perhaps a major publication could become a much richer part of the member experience. Perhaps there is functionality the association has wanted to provide for years but its existing platform hasn't allowed it to create. Or perhaps the next opportunity is gaining a much richer understanding of how individual members use the app - not simply measuring overall activity, but using behavioural insight to inform more relevant experiences, communications and services.
Whatever the answer, the reason to consider change should be meaningful enough to justify the journey.
That's why we don't believe the starting point should be a side-by-side feature comparison. It should be a conversation about what the association wants its member experience to achieve next.
Your current app may be doing everything it was originally asked to do. That doesn't necessarily mean it's capable of everything your members and your organisation will ask of it tomorrow.
An app can work perfectly well and still leave opportunities on the table.
For associations assessing whether their current platform remains right for the future, three questions can provide a useful starting point.
Are members discovering everything you already provide?
Are your publications getting the digital experience they deserve?
Can your app do something that's uniquely yours?
If the answer to all three is an unequivocal yes, there may be little reason to change.
But if one of them exposes an ambition your current app can't accommodate, that's where a different conversation begins.
Switching apps shouldn't be about replacing a set of familiar features with another version of the same thing. It should be about identifying something materially better that you want to make possible for your members.
At Cantarus, that's where we'd start too. Before showing you a generic demonstration of the Cantarus MemConnect app, we'd look at the app and digital ecosystem you already have, the content and publications you invest in, the services your members value and the things that make your association distinctive.
Then we'd ask a much more useful question...
Learn more about our MemConnect app platform or book a short discovery call to see how a platform approach could transform your member experience.