I am an active participant in the American Society of Association Executives and the Midwest Society of Association Executives (MSAE). In fact, I serve on the board of MSAE and have an MSAE board meeting later this afternoon. My profession is that of an association professional. As such, I feel it is important to participate and be involved in professional associations that help me be a better association professional – just like you do when you participate in your industry association with PLUS to be a better professional liability professional. So in preparation for that MSAE board meeting today and due to a lot of other things swirling around in my head, it got me thinking, what really is an association?

According to the IRS definition: “In general, an association is a group of people banded together for a specific purpose”. That is very broad yet simple definition. Generally, the specific purpose people come together for is to in some way help the group or the individuals in the group. It’s really is just that simple. An association is a few or a bunch of people who come together and say – “you know together we can help each other.”

In the U.S. there are over 90,000 such professional and trade associations. And, most likely all of them started out with the simple understanding that together they can help each other. So, while our world gets more complex and the professional liability industry gets more complex and even as PLUS gets more complex, I think we always must remember that ultimately PLUS, like other associations, exist for the simple purpose of coming together to help each other and help the industry.