Alexandria, Virginia, United States: To maximise the effectiveness and availability of industry data and research, the Club Management Association of America (CMAA) plans to continue the development and enhancement of its Club Finance & Operations database and further its annual research efforts in a manner that will:

• Provide greater accessibility to clubs, consultants, and other industry professionals;
• Create a common language for analysing and discussing finance and operational performance;
• Ultimately enable automated data connections to an open club data utility; and,
• Continue the expansion of available research and insights for CMAA members.

The process to continue the development and enhancement of CMAA’s research and data analytics efforts involves multiple components, including:

• Formation of a Task Force to establish standardised industry metrics to provide common language for use by club managers and board members when discussing finance and operational performance information.
• Creation of an additional Task Force charged with developing a standard mapping structure for club software vendors as well as a process to maintain mapping year-over-year that will enable automated data transfer for participating clubs.
• Streamlining of the time required from participating members to provide their financial data in support of CMAA finance and operations research by engaging GGA Partners and its experienced analytics team to help map club Chart of Accounts to CMAA’s standard account structure.
• The introduction of annual commentary on CMAA’s Finance & Operations Report, produced in collaboration with GGA Partners and RSM to provide more depth and perspective to the data presented.
• Development of an annual Industry Trend Survey produced by GGA Partners in collaboration with CMAA to provide more background on the less financial and operational aspects of this evolving industry.

By establishing standardised industry metrics, club managers and board members will speak a common language when discussing club financials. The results of the task force efforts will feed into CMAA’s continuing education programme to assist club managers in having more productive conversations in the board room. This Task Force will be modelled after association best practices for standard setting groups (like CMAA’s Uniform System of Financial Reporting for Clubs (USFRC) effort) with an expected time horizon of one year to complete the industry metrics.

The second Task Force will feed into CMAA’s data mapping initiative by creating automated data connections with club software platforms and club analytics software. The Task Force will also develop a standard mapping structure for club software vendors and a process for club mapping maintenance year-over-year, to enable automated data transfer for participating clubs.

This portion of the project will also be modelled after CMAA’s USFRC effort and have a time horizon of 2023 for full implementation.

Engaging GGA Partners and its analytics team, in collaboration with Industry Insights, will leverage the company’s expertise to map club Chart of Accounts to CMAA’s standard account structure, while remaining blind to individual club financial data. These efforts will reduce the time requirement for members participating in the CMAA finance and operations research while maintaining the confidentiality of each club.

In line with evolving CMAA’s research initiatives, CMAA’s relationship with GGA Partners as a primary research partner will also evolve. The two organisations will continue to provide education to members on the importance of data analytics.

Additionally, GGA Partners will work with RSM to produce annual comments on CMAA’s finance and operations report to provide more depth and perspective to the data presented. GGA Partners will also collaborate with CMAA to develop an annual industry trend survey to be distributed to the membership each fall to provide more background on the less financial and operational aspects of this evolving industry.

Together these initiatives will enhance the availability of data, research and insights for CMAA members and create a club data utility that will allow for equal input from all club systems and use by any industry partner while maintaining the anonymity of a club’s information to the benefit of all clubs.

The data will continue to be owned by the Association, its members, and participating clubs, solely for the benefit of its membership, the clubs they operate and the industry.