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Membership Growth Summit returns to Atlanta
The second edition of NANA's Membership Growth Summit drew association staff back to Atlanta for two days focused on renewal and recruitment.
NANA's Membership Growth Summit returned to Atlanta April 8–9, its second edition since launching in 2025, hosted by the Southeast chapter under chapter chair Dana Whitfield.
A second year, a returning speaker
Beatriz Solano-Whitaker, membership director at the Institute of Coastal Resilience Planners in Miami, spoke at the Summit for the second consecutive year, this time on renewal strategy for membership bases spread across multiple states and time zones.
"Last year I was one voice among a lot of first-time attendees figuring out what this event even was," Solano-Whitaker said. "This year people came up to me already knowing my sessions from last time, which changes what you can actually teach — you can go deeper instead of covering the basics again."
What the sessions covered
The two-day program focused on the practical mechanics of growth and retention rather than broad strategy, continuing the format the Southeast chapter established in the Summit's first year. Sessions drew on real turnarounds from NANA's own membership network, including the League of Independent Pharmacists' reversal of a multi-year membership decline, discussed on a panel Whitfield moderated.
"You don't fix renewal with a slogan," Whitfield told attendees during her opening remarks. "You fix it by calling the member who's about to leave and asking them why, then actually changing something because of the answer."
Attendance for the Summit's second edition matched the growth pattern NANA's own chapter data shows — the Southeast chapter itself has grown to 205 member organizations, its second-largest chapter behind Mid-Atlantic.
Why Atlanta, again
The Southeast chapter hosted both editions of the Summit in Atlanta, keeping the event anchored in the chapter with the most direct experience of the shared-services and renewal work the Summit covers. Whitfield's own organization, the Southeastern Textile Manufacturers Council, runs the chapter's shared-services pilot from a converted mill building in Charlotte, work that came up repeatedly in hallway conversations between sessions.
What attendees took home
Association staff who attended, or are considering the next edition, should expect the Summit to keep its practical focus:
Sessions built around specific renewal and recruitment tactics, not general membership theory
Speakers drawn from NANA's own member network rather than outside consultants
A format that rewards returning attendees with deeper material in familiar topic areas
Solano-Whitaker said she's already been asked to return for a third year, though NANA has not yet confirmed the Summit's next edition or venue.
Comparing notes across chapters
Attendees came from all six chapters this year, not only the Southeast, a spread Whitfield said she hadn't expected when the chapter first proposed the Summit. "We built this thinking mostly Southeast members would show up," she said. "Instead we had a Pacific Northwest chapter member asking a Great Lakes attendee about her renewal calendar during the same coffee break." Whitfield said the cross-chapter mixing has become as valuable to attendees as the formal sessions, and the Southeast chapter plans to keep the Summit open to all NANA members rather than narrowing it to a regional event. She said next year's agenda will build in more structured time for that kind of cross-chapter conversation.