Pacific Northwest Spring Forum 2026

The Pacific Northwest chapter drew executive directors and membership staff to a timber-framed meeting space in Portland on May 14, 2026 — the same day NANA released its first Member Renewal Benchmarks, a report the chapter had watched closely as a pilot for national programs.

Grace Lindqvist, the chapter's chair and executive director of the Federation of Regional Trail Stewards, opened by walking the room through the new benchmarks and what a six-staff regional membership organization should expect its renewal rate to look like against the national figures. Signe Thorvaldsen, executive director of the Cascadia Forest Products Council, followed with an update on her four-person staff's fifth year running remote-first, coordinating 140 member companies across Washington and Oregon without a central office.

The afternoon moved into peer roundtables, where attendees compared renewal tactics chapter to chapter, including stipends for home-office equipment and how small staffs split membership duties without a dedicated renewal coordinator. Several attendees said the benchmarks' regional cut mattered more to them than the national figure, since a 180-organization trail-stewardship federation and a 3,300-member transit-planning council carry very different renewal math.

The forum met at the chapter's Portland meeting rooms. Registration ran $45 for members and $90 for non-members, with the fee covering meals and a printed benchmarks summary.

The forum is built for membership and staffing leads at small and mid-size associations, particularly those without a central office or a dedicated membership department. Pacific Northwest is the pilot chapter for the 2027 mobile release of NANA's member portal, so attendees can expect an early look at what that rollout will mean for their chapter directory listings.

Members who missed the forum can still request the printed benchmarks summary through the chapter office, and the peer-roundtable notes on home-office stipends were compiled into a one-page handout for members who couldn't stay for the full afternoon session.