Changes to Non-Voting Associate Member Benefits

July 13, 2020

NRRA is changing the benefits available to non-voting associate members to ensure that voting municipal members—for whose primary benefit NRRA was founded—receive the bulk of NRRA’s staff time and attention.  Keep reading and see the full list of voting municipal member and non-voting associate member benefits for more information. 

NRRA has two classes of members: voting members and non-voting associate members.  Voting membership is available to municipalities, and non-voting associate membership is available to individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations. 

Changes in Benefits:

NRRA’s bylaws give the NRRA Board of Trustees the authority to determine the privileges of each class and category of membership.  On April 22, 2020, in accordance with NRRA’s bylaws, the NRRA Board of Trustees voted to change the privileges of associate members to the following:

  • Discounts available for:
    • NRRA award winning annual conference
    • Annual meeting, workshops, bus tours, and other paid events
  • Monthly e-newsletters “Full of Scrap” and “School News You Can Use”
  • Support NRRA’s mission of partnering to make recycling strong through economic and environmentally sound solutions

NRRA non-voting associate members will no longer be able to: (1) attend Member Operations Marketing meetings, (2) access NRRA’s monthly or other pricing guides, or (3) participate in NRRA’s cooperative marketing programs.   

Reasoning for These Changes:  

  1. NRRA wants to ensure that voting municipal members—for whose primary benefit NRRA was founded—receive the bulk of NRRA’s staff time and attention. With the challenging markets and now the COVID-19 pandemic, NRRA has seen increased interest from potential non-voting associate members for access to NRRA’s pricing guide and educational offerings.
  2. NRRA has individual non-voting associate members who work at municipalities that are not municipal members, yet those municipal employees get access to NRRA’s pricing and Member Operations Marketing meetings for $50 annually, less than the minimum amount of voting municipal dues.
  3. Limiting Member Operations Marketing meetings to voting municipal members only creates a space where members are more comfortable to speak and share information freely.
  4. NRRA has had several associate business members that participate in NRRA’s cooperative marketing program go out of business and not pay their bills due to NRRA.

Grandfathered Benefits: For existing non-voting associate business members that market through NRRA without incident, NRRA will grandfather those businesses and allow them to continue marketing with NRRA.  But new non-voting associate members, whether businesses or not, will not be able to participate in NRRA’s cooperative marketing program. 

Timing of Changes: These changes became effective April 22, 2020, except for the following changes relevant for non-voting associate individual members.  Existing non-voting associate individual members may attend Member Operations Marketing meetings through the end of their current dues period, which ends September 30, 2020.  Starting October 1, 2020, non-voting associate individual members need to have their municipality become a voting municipal member of NRRA in order to attend NRRA’s Member Operations Marketing meetings or access NRRA’s pricing guides. 

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