News Detail

ACI is a Business

1/1/2003

For most of us, ACI is something we do in addition to our regular jobs. Few members of the Institute give much thought to the business of ACI. ACI is a business, although it is structured and administered differently from the organizations that employ most of our members. One of my goals as President has been to make the ACI Board members and the chairs of the Board committees more aware of the business aspects of ACI. This memo describes several business issues facing the Institute and concludes with several questions that I hope will generate some feedback.

Like any other business, ACI must meet its payroll, make appropriate retirement and insurance contributions, pay its expenses, cover depreciation costs, and put some funds away for a rainy day. We are unlike other businesses in that the governance of the Institute comes from volunteers working through staff, and we are organized as a nonprofit organization. Implicit in the nonprofit category is the opposite side of the coin-we must also be a "non-loss" operation.

Over the years, ACI has been a three-legged business: membership, publications, and educational activities. More recently, a fourth leg of certification has been added to the mix. Let's look at each of these legs.

Membership: Membership has gradually declined from its all-time high and is now fluctuating around 16,000 members of all grades. The decline has caused much concern and prompted many studies. No single factor has been identified to account for the decline, and attempts to attract members through innovative approaches such as cafeteria-style selection programs have not been effective. From a business perspective, membership has been essentially a break-even portion of the Institute.

Publication sales: For many years, publication sales have been ACI's financial mainstay. More recently, these sales have been flat or declining. It is not clear why this decline is occurring. Are the publications not as relevant or as attractive as in the past? Are we not marketing them effectively? Are they priced too high? Should we make more of the publications available electronically?

Educational activities: The primary product here is our seminar program, which is an area of serious concern. For the last 2 years, the program has suffered a significant decline in attendance and consequent financial losses. The Educational Activities Committee is currently making an extensive review of the program to determine how to make our seminars more attractive. In the interim, you may have noticed that scheduled seminars in your area have been cancelled. We have been much more aggressive in cancelling seminars that do not meet break-even attendance numbers.

Certification: The certification programs have become very important for the financial well-being of the Institute, and they have made up for much of the shortfall of the declines in the other programs. We see no reason for the success of these programs to decrease.

As described, the Institute is essentially in a break-even position with some programs making money while others are not. Even though we are not a for-profit operation, ACI needs positive performance from all of its programs for one basic reason-we cannot increase our activities without the resources to do so. I see ACI growth opportunities that include increasing our international presence, our interactions with and support of chapters, and our activities with engineering students.

Let me hear from you on these specific questions:

• How can we increase value to members to retain and increase membership?
• Why are publication sales declining?
• How can we improve the seminar programs?

To make responding easier, please use the following e-mail address: president@concrete.org.

Best wishes for the New Year,

Terry Holland
President,
American Concrete Institute

Back to Past-Presidents' Memo List