When my kids were growing up, we used to mark their height on the doorframe with a sharpie, usually on birthdays. It was always fun to see how they had grown. Sometimes there wasn't a huge change in height, and other times it was a big jump. I was really bad at guessing ahead of time and was usually way under. I was just too close to see the change over time. 

Last week, I gave our annual "Services to the Field" presentation to the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. Because of COVID, it had been over four years since I'd last reported during a meeting. To prepare, I had Claire Johnston, MMA's Membership & Communications Coordinator, put together some statistics that showed change since then. Yowsa. We are MUCH taller than we were in 2018. 

Since that time, our membership has grown 36% and so has our Facebook engagement. Our membership revenue has grown by 46%! In April of 2018, when I last did our report, Claire had only been part of the MMA staff for a year and was still just a Membership Assistant. She has now been on staff for over five years with increased responsibility, and that impact is obvious from the above statistics. 

One of strategies for MMA over the years, except for during COVID of course, has been slow, incremental growth. We tweak things that are stable, lean in to things that are working, and set aside things that don't seem to have traction. I feel like I often say that we focus on the low hanging fruit. That can be frustrating because it often means it takes a very long time for a new idea to be implemented in a robust way. But, when we step back for a minute and take some measurements, it's easier to see the progress. 


Lisa Craig Brisson
Executive Director

Check out the full set of slides from the MACC presentation.