Business & Professional Associations NAICS 813910, 813920

Nov 13, 2025 - Members Want More Professional Development Services

• Professional associations are offering less professional development than members desire, according to a Momentive Software survey. While nearly half of members say that job opportunities and career development are "very important", fewer than 1 in 4 associations recognize this priority, according to Momentive's Bridging the Gap survey. There’s a 35-point gap between members who desire short videos and associations that provide them, and a 41-point gap between those who want recommended learning paths and those that provide them.
• President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that federal agencies must ensure that political appointees sign off on all grants and that such awards comply with administration policy. Some business and professional associations apply for government grants to fund community outreach activities or educational programs. The Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking EO requires all agencies to designate a senior political appointee to be responsible for reviewing grants, at both the announcement and award stages, to ensure they are “consistent with agency priorities and the national interest.” The appointee can include subject matter experts in their reviews when warranted. President Trump called on agencies to improve coordination in awarding grants to “promote consistency and eliminate redundancy.” Grants are often written in an overly complicated way, President Trump said, and he instructed agencies to use plain language that minimizes the need for legal and technical expertise from applicants.

• About 67% of associations are engaging their membership only to a moderate degree, according to a survey by association-services firm MCI of more than 12,700 members and customers from 51 associations around the world. Just 13% are engaging their membership strongly while 20% are engaging their membership in a “weak” fashion. The average engagement score between associations and the responding members and customers was 88 out of 150. A report based on the survey finds that subject-matter expertise and relevance of content are areas where associations are “excellent” in their performance, while fostering innovation, “representation of my company’s interests,” and providing value for money were areas where no more than 30% said their association was “excellent” in its performance.
• Business and professional association industry employment increased slightly while average wages for nonsupervisory employees decreased slightly during the first seven months of 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Business and professional association industry sales are forecast to grow at a 4.23% compounded annual rate from 2025 to 2029, comparable to the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc. Business and professional associations generate revenue primarily through membership fees and dues.