The Paradox of Investment: Why Do Membership Organisations Spend Big on Technology but Undervalue Strategic Expertise?

Across the membership sector, there’s a persistent paradox. Organisations will readily sign off six- or even seven-figure budgets for CRM systems, websites, learning platforms, and other digital infrastructure. Yet those same organisations hesitate, sometimes fiercely, when asked to invest a fraction of that amount in strategic planning, governance improvement, or specialist leadership consultancy.

It’s not that leaders in the sector don’t value strategy or good governance in principle. They’ll acknowledge its importance in speeches, in board minutes, and in strategic documents; but when it comes to budget allocation, tangible technology often takes precedence over the less visible, but equally vital, work of building strategic clarity and leadership strength.

So why does the shiny allure of tech trump the foundational value of strategic expertise?

Visibility and Tangibility

One of the most obvious reasons is that technology spend is highly visible. A new CRM system comes with deliverables everyone can point to: sleek dashboards, automated reporting, member self-service portals, and real-time analytics. These features can be demonstrated to boards, members, and sponsors alike. There’s a sense of “Look, we bought this, and now we have something new.”

Strategic consultancy, on the other hand, produces less tangible outputs. Strategic planning, governance reviews, and leadership development often lead to cultural shifts, better decision-making, and improved clarity over time, but these benefits are harder to put in a PowerPoint slide. They’re long-term gains, not instant wins. The absence of something going wrong rarely feels as exciting as the arrival of something shiny and new.

Peer Pressure and Sector Trends

Technology upgrades also benefit from a powerful form of external pressure: peer benchmarking. Leaders often hear, that other organisations have implemented in X system and question why they haven’t. This creates urgency. Digital transformation is a visible trend, and nobody wants to be perceived as lagging behind.

In contrast, few organisations are publicly criticised for lacking a coherent strategy or mature governance. Poor governance rarely makes the headlines, until it fails catastrophically; and even then, the root cause is often buried in the post-mortem. As a result, the impetus to address strategic or leadership gaps is weaker, and more easily postponed.

Budget Perception and Procurement Dynamics

Procurement practices also play a role. Technology purchases are often classified as capital investments, funded from reserves, grants, or one-off budgets, and can be depreciated over several years. They feel like infrastructure: necessary, permanent, and less politically risky.

By contrast, strategic consultancy, governance support, or leadership development typically sit in operational budgets. They are treated as discretionary spend and are vulnerable to cuts when finances tighten. The framing is different: technology is seen as an asset; consultancy is seen as a cost.

Overestimating Internal Capacity

Another reason strategic investment is deprioritised is the belief that the necessary expertise already exists in-house. Membership bodies often reason “Our board is made up of senior professionals, and our staff are smart people so surely we can plan strategically ourselves.” But good strategy is not simply about being clever or experienced. It requires structured processes, objective facilitation, and the ability to ask, and answer, uncomfortable questions without bias. Internal teams, no matter how capable, are rarely positioned to challenge the organisation’s orthodoxies or surface difficult truths in the way an external facilitator can.

The same applies to governance. Having a governance committee or a legally compliant constitution doesn’t mean governance is effective. Good governance needs continuous refinement, active measurement, and a willingness to adapt. That doesn’t happen by accident, it needs deliberate investment.

The Allure of Tech as a Symbol of Progress

Technology projects also have a seductive quality. They allow organisations to showcase ambition. A new CRM or member portal feels like a leap into the future, a visible, modernising step. Boards can point to it as evidence they are investing in members’ needs.

By contrast, investing in governance reform or strategic thinking often requires slowing down to think deeply, revisit assumptions, and make changes that may be uncomfortable for those in positions of power. It’s not about buying progress, it’s about doing the hard work to achieve it.

And that work can be unsettling. Leadership coaching might challenge ingrained habits. Governance reviews might question board composition or decision-making authority. Strategic planning might surface tensions between what members say they want and what the organisation can realistically deliver. None of these things are easy to showcase as “wins” in the same way a new technology launch can be.

When the Money Is There

Sometimes, the reluctance to invest in strategic expertise isn’t about a lack of resources at all but about perception and priorities. I once had a client negotiate my fee for strategic planning, saying it was more than they usually spent. I conceded, not wanting to lose the work. Yet as I walked into the first session, the CEO casually mentioned that the association was sitting on over £500,000 in reserves and didn’t know how to spend it. They even asked if I could get the board thinking about how to invest the surplus in tech-based projects.

I don’t think they realised how insulting it was to have haggled over a modest professional fee, only to subsequently reveal a surplus to be spent on technology. It was a telling moment, and one that left me feeling sour about the whole affair.

The lesson? The barrier is rarely just about affordability. It’s about what organisations perceive as “worth paying for.”

The Cost of Imbalance

The irony in all this is hard to ignore: no amount of digital infrastructure can compensate for weak leadership, fractured governance, or lack of strategic clarity. In fact, without these foundations, technology investments are more likely to underperform or fail outright.

CRMs do not fix broken strategies. Portals do not align missions. Automation does not inspire people. The most sophisticated data analytics in the world is meaningless if leaders don’t know how to interpret or act on the insights.

The result is often a cycle of tech disappointment, whereby new systems are implemented with great fanfare, but because the strategic underpinning isn’t there, and because decision-making is slow, priorities are muddled, or governance is unclear, the technology is underused or misapplied.

Rebalancing the Equation

Membership organisations need to rebalance their priorities. Technology should absolutely be part of the modernisation agenda, but it is not the whole agenda. Strategic clarity, governance maturity, and strong leadership are not optional extras, they are the conditions that make every other investment worthwhile.

In the long run, the smartest spend isn’t always the most visible or the most tangible. It’s the one that ensures the organisation knows where it’s going, has the structures to get there, and the leadership to adapt along the way.

Tech can be a powerful tool, but without strategy and governance, it is just a tool in search of a purpose.