A sector between two technology eras

Reading the new MemberWise Digital Excellence report this week, one thing stood out to me immediately.

The membership sector has done a huge amount of digital heavy lifting over the past decade. Core systems have been replaced, new websites have launched, and online learning and community platforms have become mainstream.

And yet the report suggests many organisations are now facing a different kind of challenge. Not adopting technology - but making the technology they already have work together properly.

The Digital Excellence report is always a useful snapshot of where the sector sits. This year’s edition confirms several trends many of us have been seeing in practice. Cost pressure is rising, expectations from members continue to increase, organisations are investing in digital capability – all often without a corresponding increase in resource.

This tension comes up again and again in conversations I have with membership leaders.

According to the report, 77% of membership bodies report increased cost and workload, while 64% feel greater pressure to generate income without proportional resource growth. Growth, for many organisations, is no longer simply a strategic ambition - it is necessary just to maintain position.

At the same time, digital adoption continues to progress. CRM platforms are becoming more established, website integration is improving, and AI adoption has increased significantly since the last report.

On the surface, it looks like steady progress. But reading the report more closely, a more interesting pattern starts to emerge.

Over the past decade, many membership organisations have focused on modernising their core systems.

Legacy databases have been replaced, new websites have launched, and learning platforms and community tools have been introduced. In many cases these investments have significantly improved the digital foundations organisations rely on.

But the report suggests the sector is now entering a different phase of maturity. One way of looking at that journey is in three broad phases.

• The first is digitisation - replacing legacy systems and introducing modern digital platforms.
• The second is integration - connecting core systems like CRM and website so that member data and online experiences begin to align.
• The third is intelligent platforms - where connected systems allow organisations to automate journeys, understand engagement, and deliver more personalised experiences.

The report suggests many organisations have largely completed the first phase and made solid progress on the second. The challenge now is the third.

One of the encouraging findings in the report is that core integration is improving.

Website and CRM integration continues to increase across the sector. That’s an important step forward because when these systems operate in isolation, organisations inevitably struggle to deliver coherent digital journeys.

However, the wider technology ecosystem is still only partially connected. Integration with learning platforms, communities and other engagement systems remains much lower. AI integration within existing systems is still in its infancy.

At the same time, the report identifies the inability to measure member engagement properly as the sector’s number one challenge.

Those two findings are closely related.

If systems are not connected, engagement data remains fragmented. Organisations can see pieces of member behaviour, but not the whole picture. And without that picture, it becomes difficult to understand what is actually driving retention, participation, and value.

Reading the report, the most interesting takeaway isn’t really about AI or new systems. It’s that many membership organisations have already modernised their core platforms. CRM, website, portal, learning and community tools often exist. The difficulty is getting them to operate as a coherent ecosystem.

That gap helps explain why engagement measurement remains such a persistent challenge.

What the report ultimately highlights is that technology decisions are no longer just about individual systems. Most membership organisations now operate with a stack that typically includes:

• A CRM or AMS system.
• A website CMS.
• A member portal or self-service environment.
• Learning management systems.
• Online community platforms.
• Marketing and automation tools.

Each of these systems can deliver value on its own. Most organisations already have them in place. The difficulty is getting them to work together in a way that actually produces insight.

When data flows between systems, member activity can be understood across multiple touchpoints. Automation becomes possible. Personalisation becomes realistic rather than aspirational.

That’s where many organisations are now focusing their attention.

Increasingly we see organisations deliberately designing their platforms around a connected core - where CRM, website, and member portal operate as a single ecosystem rather than separate systems.

The organisations pulling ahead tend to design their digital platform deliberately around that core. CRM holds the member data, the website delivers the experience, and the member portal provides secure self-service, all operating as one connected ecosystem rather than systems implemented at different times.

This kind of architecture allows organisations to move beyond simply publishing information online and toward genuinely connected member experiences.

The Digital Excellence report doesn’t describe a sector struggling to adopt technology.

It describes a sector learning how to make better use of the technology it already has. Replacing systems will still happen where platforms have reached the end of their life. But increasingly the bigger question organisations are asking is how those systems work together.

• How engagement is measured across multiple touchpoints.
• How member journeys can be automated.
• How digital investment supports growth rather than simply maintaining operations.

This is often the moment organisations discover that digital transformation is less about buying systems and more about designing platforms. Those are harder questions than choosing a new platform.

But they are also the questions that will define the next phase of digital maturity in the sector.

In our own work with membership organisations, this shift toward connected platforms has become increasingly clear.

Rather than building isolated systems, organisations are looking for ways to connect CRM, website, and member portal into a coherent digital platform. That architecture makes it much easier to understand engagement, enable personalisation, and evolve the digital experience over time.

Over the years I’ve seen plenty of organisations invest heavily in new systems. The ones that tend to get the most value aren’t always the ones with the newest technology. They’re usually the ones that have taken the time to design how their platforms actually work together.

The sector has done a huge amount of work digitising its foundations. The next challenge is making those foundations work together more intelligently.