From Presence to Purpose: Building Global Partnerships Around Shared Problems
For some organizations, building an international presence is a significant accomplishment. Having members in multiple countries, participating in global conferences, engaging international speakers, cultivating regional volunteers, or signing memoranda of understanding with peer organizations all represent meaningful progress.
Those efforts often take years of relationship-building, staff commitment, volunteer leadership, and institutional patience. They should not be minimized. In fact, they often create the foundation for something even stronger.
The opportunity now is to build on that presence with greater strategic clarity.
International activity shows where an organization has reach, relationships, and visibility. Global strategy helps explain what that activity is meant to accomplish, what problem it is helping to solve, who needs to be involved, and how the organization can create value in ways that are relevant across different markets and communities.
That distinction matters because the most important challenges facing many professions and industries do not stop at national borders. Issues such as sustainability, health, workforce development, energy, technology, safety, research, education, and materials innovation are global in nature. They affect professionals in different regions in different ways, but they are often connected by shared pressures and shared opportunities.
For associations and professional societies, this creates an important opening. International engagement does not have to be only about expanding membership, increasing attendance, or building visibility in new markets. Those goals can still matter. But the strongest global strategies often begin with a more fundamental question:
What problem are we trying to solve, and who do we need alongside us to solve it well?
Building on international presence
A market-first approach can be useful. Leaders may look at where they already have members, where there is economic growth, where the profession is expanding, where peer organizations are active, or where there is demand for education, standards, research, or community. These are all reasonable and necessary inputs.
But market opportunity becomes more powerful when it is connected to a clear purpose.
A country or region may appear promising on paper, but the real opportunity depends on understanding what professionals in that market need, what local organizations already provide, what barriers exist, and where the association can add value in a way that feels relevant and respectful.
That is why international presence should be treated as a platform, not simply an endpoint. Members in multiple countries, international event participation, and relationships with peer organizations can all provide useful signals. They can reveal where there is interest, where trust may already exist, and where deeper engagement may be possible.
The next step is to ask what that presence makes possible.
Can it help address a workforce challenge? Can it support professional education? Can it connect researchers or practitioners working on similar issues in different countries? Can it elevate local expertise? Can it help develop standards, share knowledge, or create new forms of collaboration?
When organizations ask these questions, international engagement becomes less about being present in more places and more about creating value with greater intention.
Trust comes before transactions
Many of the strongest international relationships do not begin with a membership transaction, sponsorship package, or formal agreement. They often begin with a conversation, a shared interest, or a small act of collaboration. Over time, those early interactions can become something more substantial. A listening session may lead to a joint program, or a content exchange may lead to a working group. A conference connection may lead to a research collaboration. An informal relationship may eventually become a formal partnership or MoU – the sequence matters.
Trust grows when an organization listens before offering solutions. It grows when local partners are treated as co-creators, not just channels for distribution or recruitment. It grows when the organization recognizes that expertise already exists in the market and that its role may be to connect, amplify, convene, or support rather than lead every activity from the center.
This is especially important for professional communities. Credibility, standards, education, research, and professional identity are shaped by local context. They cannot always be transferred directly from one market to another. They often need to be adapted with people who understand the needs, expectations, and realities of the communities being served.
That does not mean every international effort needs to be slow or overly complicated. It simply means the purpose of engagement should be clear before the tactic is chosen.
A memorandum of understanding, for example, can be very valuable when it reflects an existing relationship, a shared agenda, and a practical plan for collaboration. The same is true of events, chapters, regional groups, content partnerships, and member campaigns. Each can be an important tool when it helps both sides do something meaningful together.
Starting with the problem
A problem-led approach changes the conversation in a useful way. Instead of only asking, “which market has the most potential?” an organization can also ask, “where is there a professional challenge we are well-positioned to help address?”
Instead of only asking, “Which partner can help us enter this country?” it can ask, “Who has the trust, insight, relationships, or expertise needed to help solve this problem?”
Instead of only asking, “How do we get people to join?” it can ask, “What value would make participation meaningful in this context?”
This approach does not ignore business realities. In many cases, it strengthens them. Global engagement that is built around a real problem is more likely to lead to sustainable revenue, stronger partnerships, better programming, and deeper loyalty. People are more likely to invest their time, attention, and resources when they see that an organization understands what matters to them.
For some organizations, the shared problem may be workforce development. For others, it may be research collaboration, professional standards, emerging technology, sustainability, safety, education, credentialing, or public understanding of the field. The issue will vary by organization and by market.
What matters is that the organization can explain three things clearly: why the issue matters globally, how it shows up locally, and what role the organization is uniquely able to play.
That clarity helps focus limited time and resources. It also helps leaders make better decisions about which opportunities to pursue now, which ones to develop slowly, and which ones may not be the right fit.
Building with, not for
The future of global engagement will likely be more interconnected, more locally informed, and more collaborative. Organizations do not need to abandon what has already made them successful. Their existing programs, content, credentials, communities, and convening power may be exactly what makes them valuable internationally. But the way those assets are used may need to vary from one market to another.
In some places, the best role may be to convene. In others, it may be to support a local partner. In others, it may be to bring global visibility to local expertise, connect professionals across borders, or co-create programming around a shared challenge. This is not a smaller vision of global engagement. It is a stronger and more durable one.
International growth can still be ambitious. Organizations can and should seek new audiences, new revenue, new influence, and new partnerships. But those outcomes are more likely to last when they are built on mutual benefit, local insight, and shared purpose.
The real measure of global strategy is not only how many countries appear in a database or how many agreements have been signed. It is whether the organization is using its international presence to help the right people come together around the right problems in ways that create meaningful value.
Presence matters. It is often the first sign that an organization’s mission, expertise, and community have relevance beyond its home market. The next opportunity is to turn that presence into purpose, and that begins with a simple but powerful question:
What problem are we solving, and who do we need alongside us to solve it well?
Leadership Voices
By Tarnbir Kaur
Vice President, Membership and Strategic Engagement at the American Chemical Society (ACS)
“At ACS, we recognize that international presence and global strategy are not the same thing. Chemistry’s greatest challenges — sustainability, health, energy, materials — are borderless, and so must be our approach to the professional community. The most meaningful relationships we have built internationally did not begin with a membership transaction; they began with trust, built through local partnerships, shared expertise, and a genuine commitment to mutual benefit. Our MoUs with several international societies reflect exactly this philosophy — building with, not for, the communities we serve. The future of global engagement is not a larger version of what we already do. It is something more interconnected, more locally led, and more purposefully designed around the question that should always come first: what problem are we solving, and who do we need alongside us to solve it well?”