National Association of College and University Business Officers
A renewal notice has one job before anyone can pay it. It has to reach the person who controls the budget. At a college or university, that person is often the Chief Business Officer. At NACUBO, as a trade association, the membership belongs to the institution, not to any individual. Business officers get promoted, retire, and move to other campuses, and the association is rarely told. So how does one membership team keep track of the current Chief Business Officer at every member institution, when it can't call each one?
- Association Type: Institutional membership in higher education. Colleges and universities hold the membership, not individuals.
- About the Organization: NACUBO is the National Association of College and University Business Officers, serving the finance and administration leaders who run the business side of campuses.
The Challenge
Institutional membership puts a gap between the member and the membership. The institution pays, and the person who holds the account often doesn't know it exists. Amy Barbieri, Director, Membership at NACUBO, has seen this firsthand: "I've even asked before, did you know that your institution is a member of NACUBO? Some people said yes, but many said no. And then that's the thing. You have this account, you don't even know you're a member." Her own conclusion about what that costs is blunt. "That I think is why we lose members."
The chief business officer controls the budget and approves the dues invoice, so the renewal decision belongs to whoever holds that job today. When that person changes and nobody tells NACUBO, the contact record still lists last year's chief business officer. No one notices until renewal time, when the notice goes to someone who can't approve it.
The Solution
NACUBO sent one email campaign to its institutional contacts with a single question: "Are you the current Chief Business Officer at your institution?" The answer was yes or no, which takes a member a few seconds. NACUBO asked the small question, captured each answer against the member record, and acted on what came back.
The follow-up is where the campaign did most of its work. Anyone who answered no got a second question: "Please provide the name, title, email of the current CBO." The colleague who has just told you they aren't the Chief Business Officer is usually the person who knows who is. The first question confirmed records. The second one corrected them.
The Results
This campaign measured contact accuracy, which directly ties in to renewals or revenue down the road.
- ✅ 62% engagement rate across 1,573 contacts
- ✅ 996 answers from 2,453 emails sent
- ✅ 92% confirmed they were the current chief business officer; 8% said they weren't
- ✅ 67 new contacts from follow-up answers, each giving the name, title, and email of the person the member identified as their institution's current chief business officer
Why It Worked
- Ask for the one fact the member already knows. "Are you the current Chief Business Officer?" takes a second to answer. "Please update your profile" is a chore, and members treat it like one.
- A no is worth more than silence. The members who confirmed kept the list accurate. The members who said no, and then named somebody else, are the reason the campaign paid for itself.
- Ask before the invoice, not after it bounces. Confirming a contact is cheap. A renewal notice that reaches nobody is not.
- Capacity is the constraint, not effort. No membership team can phone every institution on its list to check a job title. It can ask all of them at once, and then act on what comes back.
What's Ahead
A confirmed list of who controls the budget at each member institution is where the rest of the work starts: renewal outreach, dues conversations, and the job of showing an institution what its membership is actually worth. NACUBO runs other profile campaigns the same way, and each one leaves the member record in better shape than it found it.
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