Member spotlight
From scholarship to CAE in one cycle
A 2025 NANA Foundation scholar, Devika Anand passed the CAE in the December 2025 window, less than a year after applying.
Devika Anand, membership coordinator at the Alliance of Regional Credit Unions in Columbus, passed the Certified Association Executive exam in the December 2025 testing window, roughly a year after receiving a NANA Foundation scholarship to cover the exam fee.
A scholarship, then a study plan
Anand was one of 21 scholars in the Foundation's 2025 CAE scholarship cohort. She had considered pursuing the credential for two years before applying, put off by the exam fee and the amount of study time she assumed it would take on top of a full membership-coordinator workload.
"I kept telling myself I'd apply next year," Anand said. "The scholarship removed the one excuse I actually had control over."
Once accepted, Anand built a study schedule around early mornings before her workday started, using NANA's Learning catalog materials and a study group of other scholarship recipients preparing for the same window. She said the group, informally organized among that year's cohort, mattered as much as any single resource.
Anand studied roughly six hours a week for four months before sitting for the exam, on top of her full-time role managing membership records for a 212-credit-union alliance across 40 states.
What passing changed
Anand said the credential hasn't changed her title yet, but it has changed which conversations she's included in at ARCU, particularly around member-retention strategy where her director now asks for her input directly rather than routing questions through a supervisor.
"Nobody hands you new responsibility because you passed a test," Anand said. "But I stopped getting left off meetings I used to hear about secondhand."
NANA Foundation Executive Director Samuel Heathcote said Anand's timeline, scholarship to credential in roughly one cycle, is faster than most scholars manage, since many spread their study across two testing windows rather than one. He said the Foundation doesn't track a formal statistic on how long scholars typically take, since scholars can sit for whichever window fits their preparation, but Anand's single-window pass is unusual enough that her cohort's study group asked her to walk them through her schedule.
Why the timeline matters to NANA
NANA's own membership growth and renewal figures depend in part on association staff having the credentials and skills to run their organizations well, which is the premise behind the Foundation's scholarship program and the Learning catalog it feeds into. Anand's case is a data point NANA staff point to when member associations ask whether the scholarship program is worth their staff's time to apply for.
For staff considering the credential
Association staff weighing whether to pursue the CAE should:
Apply for a Foundation scholarship during the January window if exam-fee cost is the barrier
Build a study schedule around a specific testing window rather than studying indefinitely
Look for a study group among peers targeting the same window — Anand said hers made the difference between finishing and drifting
Anand said she's already fielding questions from ARCU colleagues considering the 2026 scholarship cycle, and plans to informally mentor at least one applicant through this year's application.