Association revenue doesn’t always come from membership or events. In today’s content-driven environment, there are innovative ways of creating new revenue streams built around free resources proven so valuable that they organically develop into sources of income.

Ten years ago, Cathy Lada, D.Sc., CAE, Lada Consulting, was head of communications at the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. ACCE was working with a public relations agency to examine their brand and create resources that helped its members market themselves as good business advocates.

The agency created advertising, messaging, and brand toolkits that were initially free of charge and customizable so that individual chambers of commerce could adapt them for their own needs. Lada said that ACCE soon discovered that many small and medium-sized chambers didn’t have marketing staff or experience in message development, prompting phase two of the initiative.