ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership

Associations Matter

The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) retained Content First to produce an independent study to quantify the economic contribution of the association community to the U.S. economy. This first-of-its-kind study compiled impartial U.S. government data, which examined key metrics such as employment, wages, revenues to quantify what the vibrant association industry means to America’s economy.

Associations Matter: Associations by the Numbers, was released by ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership in November 2007 to provide policymakers, the press, and the public with objective statistics on the importance of the association industry to each state. The data revealed that associations created more than 1 million jobs, generating employment in every state.

Key Findings

California, New York, Illinois, Florida, and Pennsylvania were the nation’s leaders in association employment

The nation’s association industry paid an annual average wage of more than $40,000 for associations overall and $58,500 for business and professional organizations. Together, the association industry generated a payroll of over $30 billion

Nationwide, associations generated some $33 billion in revenue and held an estimated $40.6 billion in assets