News
First Membership Growth Summit convenes in Atlanta
NANA's Southeast chapter hosted the inaugural Membership Growth Summit, April 9–10, built around a single topic instead of a general conference agenda.
NANA's Southeast chapter hosted the first Membership Growth Summit April 9 and 10 in Atlanta, a two-day event built around one subject, membership growth and renewal, rather than the broad agenda of NANA's national Summit.
Why a single-topic event
Southeast chapter chair Dana Whitfield proposed the event after members told the chapter that growth and renewal deserved a dedicated forum, separate from governance, advocacy, and the other topics that crowd a general conference agenda. The chapter, whose signature shared-services pilot has run since 2023, offered to host the first edition in Atlanta.
Members kept telling us the growth conversation got fifteen minutes on a general Summit agenda. This event gives it two full days.
— Dana Whitfield, Southeast Chapter Chair
What the two days covered
The event ran as a hybrid format, with sessions available both in person and by livestream for members unable to travel. Beatriz Solano-Whitaker, Membership Director at the Institute of Coastal Resilience Planners, spoke on renewal strategy drawn from her own organization's experience reversing membership losses.
Sessions covered:
Renewal-cycle design and timing
Non-dues revenue as a growth lever
Segmenting outreach by organization size
Using engagement data to flag at-risk members before renewal
As a first edition, attendance was modest by Summit standards but exceeded the chapter's own planning estimate, according to organizers, who did not release a specific attendee count.
What comes next
The Membership Growth Summit is planned as an annual event, returning to Atlanta in April 2026. Whitfield said the chapter intends to keep the event single-topic rather than expand its scope, on the theory that a narrower agenda draws attendees who are specifically working on growth and renewal problems rather than a general membership audience.
Sponsors supporting the inaugural event included Meridian Benefits Group, Coalition Print & Mail, and Brightfold Registration. Recordings of sessions are available to members through the resource library for those who registered but could not attend live.
Members interested in the 2026 edition can find registration details through the Southeast chapter page as the date approaches.
A chapter-hosted model
Like the chapter roundtables and forums other chapters already run, the Membership Growth Summit is organized by chapter leadership rather than national staff, though NANA's meetings team supported logistics and registration. Whitfield said the chapter model let organizers move faster on the agenda than a national planning process typically allows, since decisions ran through one chapter's leadership rather than a national committee. What sets this event apart is only that it draws attendees from beyond the Southeast chapter's own membership.
Other chapters have asked about hosting similar single-topic events on their own signature issues, from Great Lakes on mentorship and staff development to Pacific Northwest on remote-first staffing, though no additional chapter-hosted national events have been scheduled. Whitfield said the Southeast chapter has offered to share its planning documents, from the agenda-building process to the sponsor outreach list, with any chapter considering a similar event of its own. She expects at least one other chapter to test the model within the next two years.