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John Graham is president and CEO of ASAE, and believes community is critical for associations. "Community is near and dear to my heart," he says. In the past, associations did education programs and trade shows, and "the view was that community was a byproduct of those activities. I think now we are at a place where we recognize that we had it backwards, 180 degrees backwards. A byproduct of community is education, or learning, or forming relationships, or professional development." Associations are really all about, first and foremost, creating community. The community path has evolved so that technology has also enabled it and can assist in creating community, including even taking pictures at meetings and posting them on association sites. Community can be formed in many ways, ideally face to face, but in many different ways, John says, pointing to the ASAE Collaborate site as an example. The whole essence of forming community is getting human interaction. A Board has community, but for a defined short-lived period of time, he says, and the needs of the Board community have to be carefully determined. But association members engage in many communities that are part of the overall community. Chapters, on the other hand, often form their own community outside of the national association. "At the end of the day," John says, "first and foremost, [associations] are a catalyst to form communities." Because the most important thing associations do is put people together. Being in an association community can be professionally rewarding, John says, but also very personally rewarding.
