We are VPG.

A strategic, driven Association Management Company for a changing world. We partner in your success by proactively providing best-in-class solutions to advance your organization, grow membership, build event attendance and sponsorship and help you achieve your goals.

Who we are.

You know all those things that you’d love to do, but can't because you don’t have the expertise, the resources, or the budget? That’s where we come in! Van Petten Group is a different kind of association management company for a technologically-driven world. We serve as your creative agency, your association management company, your consultant, and your therapist. Headquartered in Chicago, we have associates located across the country to best serve a client base that stretches coast to coast.

Who we serve.

We provide trade associations, corporations, nonprofits, professional societies, and government institutes with a comprehensive array of cost-effective solutions for any organization.

Our Mission and Vision.

Van Petten Group was developed from a thirst for the entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to serve the betterment of our community; and that’s what gets us out of bed each morning – the ability to support the members of our community (and yours) through out-of-the-box thinking and partnership. Through a holistic approach, purposeful actions, and integrated strategies, VPG’s vision is to improve the lives and systems within associations.

VPG Values

VESTED INTEREST: We don’t view associations as clients; they’re partners and friends. VPG maintains a vested interest in the success of the associations we support. We learn together, we grow together, and we thrive together. PASSION: We will execute each process with passion and leverage the passion of our association and its members to produce memorable events and solutions that build lasting impressions. GRATITUDE: VPG is grateful for the opportunity to support organizations that make a difference and we convey that gratitude to each and every member. Serving associations is our why, and it’s up to us to remind members of their own why for being apart of the association and industry.

Meet Our Team

How we work.

LISTEN

Listen and learn. (Not you, us.) That’s the first thing we do. We listen to you. We ask you questions. We learn what your goals are and what it will take to reach them. We study your association, explore your industry and get to know your members.

We also scope out your rivals. We figure out exactly what they're up to. What they do, say, and why. We pinpoint weaknesses, examine their strengths and see how your association stacks up. That is what the Listen stage is all about. We’re not trying to make you feel important, we’re trying to uncover key insights and lay the foundation for everything we do together.

PLAN

We think about strategy first and foremost, and a lot more after that. With our research done, the planning process turns that information into a clear set of organizational insights, user objectives and business goals. Paired with target personas and user experience data, this information helps us create an overall strategic vision for your association that will define the digital state of the brand along with its messaging and positioning in the marketplace.

At this point, we’re able to create a plan to bring this vision to life. At the end of the Planning Stage, we and you will know where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.

CREATE & ITERATE

At this point, we’ve done the math. We’ve strategized, quantified and analyzed. We get it. We get your members. We get your industry. We get your brand. We know what the goals are and what we need to do to reach them. Now, we figure out how. This is where the magic happens.

Creative, social, search, tech, the account guys, our clients — we all work together. We mix it up. We cross-pollinate. We smash left-brains into right ones. We collaborate, discuss, laugh and argue. We create ideas that help integrate a brand not just across different platforms, but weave it into peoples’ lives. Ideas that engage, entertain and inform. Ideas that jive with how they connect, converse, and consume. It’s what we call an association ecosystem. Our clients just call it “awesome.”

EXECUTE

This is where it all comes together. Go time. The moment of truth. Prototypes are built. Sites begin to come to life. Strategies are implemented and campaigns launched.

This phase is one of the most extensive and collaborative processes, often involving roles that include user experience, interaction design, visual design, content and asset development, social media management, event management, and more. For you, our client, this is the easy part. That’s the beautiful thing about our process. By the time the Execute phase begins, you’ve already made the tough decisions. You’ve seen the research and embraced the insights. You’ve approved the plan and shared in the vision.

MEASURE

We‘ve got something to prove. We’re an association management firm not an art house. When we create something that moves people, it’s so we can move them to our clients’ associations. When we inspire people, it’s so we can inspire sales. Our work is designed to work. In the Measure Phase we make sure it does.

By clearly defining our goals and objectives early in the process, we’re able to define key performance indicators and metrics that we can use to measure program or platform performance. Once the project is up and going, we measure, test and compare. We analyze. We figure out what’s working, and what could be working better. Through all of this, we’re able to track member behavior and get a better understanding of how member data profiles can be utilized to create stronger, more relevant experiences that further connect them to the brand. Don't take our word for it - form your own opinions based on the data.

OPTIMIZE

In a real-time world there’s no time to rest. You’ve got to keep moving. We never sit back and just admire our work because we’re constantly looking for ways to make it better. We use the data and results to optimize and improve the final product.

The closest we get to “looking” back is when we measure the effectiveness of our work. The only reason we look at how well we did, is to figure out what we can do better. If something’s not performing like it should, we tweak it. If it’s not working at all we drop it. If it’s blowing the lid off expectations, we double down. That’s what it's all about. Continuous progress. Constant forward motion. We don’t want to just help you reach goals for sales, market share or ROI, we want to help you shatter them. Our goal is to help your brand take a powerful, dramatic LEAP forward. And we do that one step at a time.

Management Experience That Makes a Difference!