Could a short-term boost help take the pressure off and keep things moving for your members?
Find out how interim professionals bring the right skills, ideas and capacity to keep member delivery on track.
Things fall behind, it happens. Someone leaves, a system upgrade drags on, or a new project lands with a thud and no one quite has the headspace to pick it up. Meanwhile, members still expect everything to work smoothly, as they should!
Most of the time, teams do their best to get through. But eventually, something often gives. A delay in onboarding, a backlog in renewals, or quiet drop in member satisfaction. Nothing dramatic at first, but it all adds up.
According to Marketing General Inc’s Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, one of the main reasons members choose not to renew their membership is due to a lack of engagement. And it’s not usually a cut-and-dry decision like lack of budget - it’s often the cumulative effect of lots of small things being missed. Like a piece of member comms that goes out late, a broken link that stays broken, a form no one ever quite got around to fixing - these kinds of things chip away at the member experience and can leave them feeling underserved.
How do interims help?
There’s still a perception that interims are only there to cover a gap when someone’s off. But more and more, we’re seeing membership organisations bring in interim support not because of absence, but because the work still needs doing, and the permanent team simply doesn’t have the capacity to do it all.
In fact, the Institute of Interim Management’s 2024 report found that over 80% of interim assignments now focus on specific project delivery or operational improvement, rather than traditional ‘cover’.
We’ve placed talented interims to deal with everything from:
- Rolling out a long-delayed CRM migration
- Sorting a renewals journey that’s become clunky and unclear
- Preparing for an accreditation or audit
- Delivering a board-mandated project without derailing the BAU
- Fixing onboarding journeys that were losing new members before they even got going
They bring structure, pace, and crucially, focus. And because they’re not tied into internal politics, they can often push things forward more quickly than someone already pulled in five different directions.
Giving your team room to breathe
It’s worth saying that we aren’t necessarily talking about capability here, it’s more about capacity. Most membership teams are already doing two or three people’s jobs. If you add another priority onto the pile, something else is going to slide.
According to Unite for Our Society, nearly 70% of not-for-profit staff reported suffering from anxiety as a result of working excessive hours or having excessive workloads. And that’s before you add in the complexity of hybrid teams, lean budgets and the always-on nature of member services.
An interim doesn’t replace your team, they give them space to focus. Whether that’s by owning a project in its entirety, or just keeping delivery moving so permanent staff can focus on strategic work, governance or member relationships.
One professional association we worked with recently brought in an interim to take on a time-sensitive piece of digital work ahead of their AGM. It freed up the internal team to focus on member engagement and the event itself. The work got done, the members got what they needed, and the pressure was off. No drama, no burnout!
Interims aren’t forever
Interims come in for a reason, and they leave when the job’s done. It’s not open-ended and it doesn’t have to be another headcount you need to worry about. It’s short-term, focused support that leaves your organisation in a better place than it was before.
The average interim contract is three to nine months, which is long enough to get stuck in properly, but short enough to stay agile and targeted. And the good ones always hand over properly, including documenting what they’ve done, training internal staff where needed, and making sure nothing unravels the minute they walk out the door.
We like to think of interims as scaffolding. They’re not part of the final structure, but essential while you’re building or fixing something important.
Bringing in an interim to keep member delivery on track
If you’re struggling to stay on top of member delivery, chances are the cracks have already started to show. Maybe onboarding’s slowed down, service queries are piling up, or member comms are becoming more reactive than planned. These aren’t things that can wait, but they do often get pushed down the list when you’re short on time or people.
Bringing in an interim makes sense when delivery risks slipping - not in theory, but in practice. When things that affect your members directly start to stall, get inconsistent, or stop altogether. It could be a renewals cycle that isn’t working, an events programme that’s lost focus, or a CRM migration that’s delaying everything else.
This isn’t like hitting pause, it’s about making sure the member experience doesn’t suffer just because the internal situation is stretched. An interim can keep key pieces moving, get things back on track, and buy your team the space they need to do their jobs properly.
Final thoughts
When member delivery starts to slip, it’s rarely one big issue - it’s the slow build-up of missed moments. And that’s where interim support earns its place; not as a luxury, or a fallback, but as a practical way to protect the member experience when your team’s at full stretch. Whether it’s owning a specific project, stabilising a piece of delivery, or just helping clear the backlog, interims help keep things moving.
Because members don’t wait until your staffing’s sorted. They’re experiencing your organisation in real time, right now. And if delivery falters, so does trust.
So, bringing in the right interim could be the simplest way to make sure your member delivery stays strong, even when everything else is under pressure.
Looking for interim support? We’re the membership sector’s go-to specialists for interim and temp recruitment. Get in touch and let’s keep your projects moving.