LEADING LEARNING RESEARCH

The Strategic Outlook
for Association Learning Businesses 2026

• Strategic Direction: Major trends and priorities driving associations forward in 2026.
• Critical Constraints: Structural and market barriers associations must overcome - and how.
• Credibility Capital: The path to leveraging distinctive association strengths to create competitive advantage.

Executive Summary

The Strategic Outlook for Association Learning Businesses 2026 continues our efforts to understand the trends and issues shaping the business of lifelong learning, continuing education, and professional development. At its core is data collected via an online, non-statistical survey between September 2 and October 22, 2025. We received 156 qualifying responses from market-facing learning businesses—entities that sell continuing education, professional development, and other lifelong learning experiences to adult learners. Of these, 107 responses came from associations, and only those responses inform this report.

Since 2020, we have surveyed learning businesses annually on key trends and issues. This year marks the first time we are issuing a full report on the results. In doing so, we return to our roots and to our long-held belief that good data informs sound decision-making. From 2009 to 2017, we surveyed associations on their technology-enabled learning offerings and issued a series of publications: Association E-learning (2009) and Association Learning + Technology (2011, 2014, 2016, and 2017). This report builds on that history as the landscape of learning continues to evolve and offers a picture of the pressures and possibilities shaping the future.

A Framework for Understanding Learning Businesses: Reach, Revenue, and Impact

While learning businesses vary widely in size, structure, and market, they share three fundamental goals: reach, revenue, and impact.

• Reach involves identifying who you can and should serve, then connecting with as many of those learners as possible. Reach is not merely about volume; it is about cultivating the right learners.
• Revenue is the financial fuel that keeps the learning business going. Even associations offering education as a member benefit seek to maximize revenue because revenue drives mission delivery.
• Impact reflects the relevance, effectiveness, and value of a learning business. Organizations that create meaningful impact—for individuals, organizations, and entire professions—thrive. Those that do not struggle in a landscape where time, attention, and money are acutely contested.

We use reach, revenue, and impact as core lenses to organize this report, following an opening section on strategic direction.

Three Strategic Takeaways for 2026

This year’s survey data reveals a sector that recognizes the growing importance of education but is also grappling with rising expectations, evolving workforce needs, and internal constraints. Across the findings, three themes stand out as particularly significant for association learning businesses.

• Strategic clarity is an existential issue.
  Associations have ambitious goals—growing revenue, sharpening workforce relevance, and deepening learner engagement rank among the highest priorities. But ambition alone is insufficient. The data underscores the importance of strategic clarity: a grounded understanding of organizational purpose, learner and employer needs, and where the association’s most meaningful contributions lie. Strategic clarity is necessary when a learning business is making tough choices about investment, differentiation, and program design. It is the foundation for translating aspiration into sustainable progress.
• Capacity is the primary constraint.
  Limited staffing, insufficient marketing and sales capacity, lack of specialized expertise, and competing internal priorities emerge as dominant themes across the responses to multiple survey questions. Small teams, constrained marketing reach, and competing internal priorities shape what learning businesses can realistically accomplish. Demand is not the problem; capacity is. Strengthening capacity—whether through staff, partnerships, technology, or process optimization—is one of the highest-leverage opportunities for improving reach, revenue, and impact.
• Credibility drives differentiation.
  Associations possess distinctive strengths: deep expertise, standards, certifications, research, and long-standing trust in their fields. Yet many respondents acknowledge they are not fully leveraging these advantages. Differentiation in an increasingly competitive learning landscape depends on credibility and on aligning offerings with the authoritative assets only that particular association can provide. We refer to the combination of these trusted, hard-to-replicate organizational assets as Credibility CapitalTM (more on this concept later in the report). When learning portfolios intentionally and fully align with this capital, offerings stand out, value becomes clearer, and impact deepens.

A Year for Focus and Discipline

Each of the three takeaways speaks to the vital necessity of focus and discipline. Sometimes the most pressing decisions a learning business faces are as much about what not to do as they are about what to do. Associations that ground their decisions in strategic clarity, invest in the capacity required to execute effectively, and leverage their credibility with intention will be best positioned to expand their reach, generate sustainable revenue, and deliver meaningful impact.

The pages that follow explore how these themes appear in the data—and what they signal for the learning businesses shaping the future of their professions and industries.

To get additional insights and the data behind them, download the briefing today!