Define & Achieve Your Goals by Building a System That Works for Your Association

by Jeremy Wall, Goal Makers

Every year, association professionals set goals with good intentions. And every year, many of those goals struggle to survive the realities of competing priorities, volunteer leadership transitions, budget constraints, and limited staff capacity. The challenge isn’t effort or commitment. It’s often the absence of a clear, repeatable system for defining priorities, making tradeoffs, and revisiting goals as conditions change.

A helpful way to frame this work is through a Kaizen mindset. Kaizen is commonly defined as continuous improvement through small, intentional changes over time. Rather than treating goal setting as a one-time annual exercise, this approach emphasizes progress through regular check-ins, adjustments, and learning. For associations, where mission, members, and resources are constantly evolving, this lens is especially valuable.

What Makes a Goal Worth Pursuing?

Before diving into what goals to set, it’s important to establish how to evaluate them. At GoalMakers, we share these core goal-setting guidelines to help create goals with consistency:

• Challenging, yet reasonable

• Controllable

• Directly related to the vision

• Measurable

• Limited to no more than three at a time

• Established and revisited regularly

• Focused on results, not action steps

• Specific and clearly stated
  
  

This list isn’t meant to add complexity. It’s a filter. If a goal doesn’t meet most of these criteria, it’s likely to create noise rather than momentum.

Three Types of Goals Every Association Balances

In our work with associations, we’ve found that effective goal setting tends to fall into three interconnected categories: financial goals, member goals, and employee goals. Focusing on just one often creates unintended consequences. Balancing all three creates resilience and alignment.

Financial Goals: Clarifying Tradeoffs Without Losing the Mission

As a facilitator for the AE-MBA, I’ve had the opportunity to hear dozens of real-world stories from association leaders about how they approach goal-setting in practice. One example stands out because it neatly connected financial clarity, member impact, and team sustainability.

A state-level, trade-focused association approaching its 70th year had built a full calendar of events and education over decades of steady growth. Many offerings had become expected fixtures, even as leadership began thinking more intentionally about the future. With guidance from a new CPA firm, the team reviewed their full portfolio and paused two lower-impact events. The decision wasn’t based solely on profitability. Declining registrations and limited impact indicated that these programs no longer served members meaningfully.

At the same time, the association chose to retain a program that served a smaller, underserved segment of the membership, even though it operated at a loss, because it aligned strongly with the organization’s mission. The result wasn’t just improved financial focus. With fewer initiatives competing for attention, staff capacity improved, program quality increased, and burnout declined. Doing fewer things allowed them to do the right things better.

Member Goals: Turning Feedback Into Action

Through GoalMakers’ work supporting education programs for more than 80 associations, one pattern consistently emerges. Most organizations collect feedback. Far fewer use it in ways that drive meaningful change.

In one of our partnerships with a large national distribution association, we helped them redesign their end-of-program survey to move beyond general satisfaction questions. The survey paired a simple recommendation-based question with targeted prompts about pacing, format, and peer interaction. The feedback was clear. Participants valued the content but wanted more time to engage with peers and apply what they were learning.

Rather than filing the results away, the association made focused adjustments. We extended the program timeline, added 30 minutes to live sessions, and created more opportunities for peer connection outside of live calls. These changes didn’t reinvent the program. They strengthened it. The feedback became a bridge to improvement, not just a score.

Closing the Loop: Promoters and Detractors

Promoter feedback (9–10 scores) signals trust. The best associations use this moment to invite testimonials, flag future outreach, or reconnect when similar programs reopen. Over time, this becomes a renewal-and-engagement flywheel grounded in real experience.

Detractor feedback (6 and below) can feel uncomfortable, but it’s often the most valuable. I like to say, “Getting frustrated with detractors is like getting mad at a mirror for showing you there is something in your teeth”. The goal isn’t to overhaul strategy in response to every comment, but to listen for patterns, ask follow-up questions, and respond thoughtfully. Sometimes the right answer is a change. Other times, it’s acknowledging the insight and explaining how it doesn’t currently fit within the broader strategic plan.

Employee Goals: Using Engagement Data to Focus Where It Matters

Employee goals can be difficult to define in associations where people wear many hats, and formal management training isn’t always part of the career path. This is where tools like the Gallup Q12 are especially helpful, not as a scorecard, but as a practical framework for focus.

We often encourage teams to start with the foundational questions, particularly Q1 (“I know what is expected of me at work”) and Q2 (“I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right”). These are considered basic needs. When they aren’t met, even highly motivated teams struggle to perform.

Beyond those basics, two additional questions are worth special attention. 

Q4 (“In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work”) is often one of the quickest (and easiest) areas to improve. When scores are low, it’s not a budget issue; it’s a management opportunity. Recognition can happen in one-on-ones, informal conversations, or public acknowledgments in front of the team or key volunteer leaders to highlight that success. (Just keep in mind, some people hate public recognition…so knowing your team helps you do this successfully.)

Q8 (“The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important”) is especially important in associations, where mission is central to the organization's existence and is often directly tied to restricted funding. When scores lag here, it’s often a signal that employees don’t clearly see how their day-to-day work connects to the organization’s purpose. Addressing this doesn’t require rewriting the mission, but reinforcing the link between roles, priorities, and impact.

Don’t Forget Personal Goals

Finally, strong goal systems make room for personal goals as well. Learning, health, and family commitments matter, and setting measurable, time-bound personal goals helps reinforce the habits of follow-through that carry into professional life.

Lastly, Momentum Over Perfection

Effective goal setting isn’t about getting everything right at the start of the year. It’s about creating a system that allows you to pause, prioritize, and adjust. Financial, member, and employee goals work best when they’re viewed together, revisited regularly, and grounded in reality. Progress comes from momentum, not perfection.

Kick off your 2026 goals with the Association Executive MBA (AE-MBA). This 10-week program helps association leaders turn big-picture goals into clear, actionable strategies—aligning personal leadership growth with organizational and financial outcomes. Start the year with focus, accountability, and a framework you can use all year long.

Jeremy Wall is the co-founder and lead facilitator at GoalMakers, where he works with associations across North America to design and deliver practical business and leadership education. Through programs like the AE-MBA, Jeremy partners closely with association professionals and volunteer leaders to translate strategy into action, with a focus on financial clarity, member impact, and people leadership. He brings a facilitative, real-world approach shaped by working alongside more than 80 associations and hearing firsthand how goals are set, challenged, and achieved in complex, mission-driven environments.