The challenge isn’t finding learners who want professional development. It’s having the resources to serve them.
New research from Leading Learning’s Strategic Outlook for Association Learning Businesses 2026 reveals a surprising truth: internal constraints, not market demand, are the primary obstacle holding association learning businesses back. For leaders who’ve spent years worried about competition from commercial providers or declining member engagement, this finding might feel counterintuitive. But when you look at the data, the pattern is unmistakable.
The Numbers Tell the Story
When asked about the biggest challenges to growing enrollments and registrations, associations pointed overwhelmingly to internal limitations. Nearly half of respondents (47.6%) cited insufficient internal resources, such as staff or budget, as their top challenge. That’s not a small segment. That’s the single largest response to the question.
The revenue side tells a similar story. When asked what’s preventing education offerings from reaching their full revenue potential, a majority (52.6%) identified inadequate marketing and sales capacity as the primary barrier. More than a third (36.1%) pointed to insufficient staffing or production capacity. And 38.1% said competing internal priorities within the organization were holding them back.
Meanwhile, the staffing reality paints a vivid picture of how lean these operations run. The typical association learning business has a median of just four paid staff focused specifically on education. Four people handling content development, delivery, marketing, learner support, technology management, and strategic planning. These aren’t organizations lacking ambition. They’re organizations stretched too thin.
The Disconnect Between Importance and Investment
Education is clearly a strategic priority for most associations. The survey found that 64.3% of associations expect their education offerings to generate a surplus. Revenue growth was the top primary strategic goal (28.0%), and growing enrollments was the top secondary strategic goal (26.4%). Leaders know that learning matters.
Yet staffing and budget levels often don’t match that strategic importance. This disconnect creates a frustrating cycle: associations recognize education as essential to their mission and their financial health, but they struggle to resource it adequately. The result is teams that can keep the lights on but lack the bandwidth to innovate, experiment, or scale.
When internal capacity is stretched, specific functions start to suffer. Marketing becomes an afterthought, handled only after a product is developed. Content refresh cycles lengthen. New partnerships go unexplored. Pricing strategies stay static. Each of these gaps affects reach and revenue, but not because of market conditions. Because of execution constraints.
What This Means for Association Leaders
If demand isn’t the problem, the solution isn’t necessarily bigger marketing budgets or flashier course formats. It’s addressing the capacity bottleneck itself.
That might mean making a case for additional staff investment. But for many associations operating with tight budgets, simply adding headcount isn’t realistic. This is where strategic partnerships become valuable, not as a nice-to-have, but as a practical necessity.
Consider what a partner can provide: specialized expertise in areas like instructional design, technology platforms, marketing, or global distribution. The ability to scale production without proportionally scaling staff is important. Access to distribution networks, such as global training providers and corporate relationships, that would take years to build independently. In our experience at Holmes Corporation, 45-75% of certification prep course revenue is generated through our 800+ global training partners and 1300+ corporate partners. Building that reach and supporting those partners isn’t something most associations can replicate with a four-person team.
Questions Worth Asking
If your association recognizes itself in these findings, a few questions might help clarify the path forward:
Where are the real bottlenecks? Is it knowledge management? Content production? Marketing execution? Technology management? Leveraging data Pinpointing the specific constraint helps you address it more precisely.
What must stay in-house, and what could a partner handle better? Associations often default to doing everything internally. But if a partner can handle course production, channel management or global distribution more effectively, that frees your team to focus on what only you can do: leveraging your unique expertise and member relationships.
Are you measuring the right things? The survey found that 92.6% of associations track enrollment numbers and 85.9% track learner satisfaction. Far fewer measure outcomes like skill application or career impact. Knowing what’s working, and what’s not, helps you allocate limited capacity more wisely.
The Bottom Line
The Leading Learning research offers a reframe that many association leaders may find liberating: the market isn’t the problem. Learners want professional development. Employers need workforce skills. Demand exists.
The constraint is capacity. And capacity, unlike market forces, is something associations can address directly, whether through internal investment, smarter prioritization, or partnerships that extend what your team can accomplish.
Associations that recognize this and act on it will be better positioned to convert demand into enrollments, enrollments into revenue, and revenue into mission impact.
Holmes Corporation has partnered with professional associations for more than 50 years to help them extend their capacity and grow their learning businesses. If you’d like to explore how we might help, contact us at [email protected] or visit holmescorp.com.
