Most union leaders brace for the worst going into a modernization project; bad data, broken systems, a painful slog. Kevin VanderKley keeps finding the opposite. The Chief Consulting Officer at Bursting Silver joins Riley Miller to explain why the surface chaos is misleading and most unions are in far better shape than they think.

The real problem usually isn't bad data, it's fragmented data. The answers exist; they're just scattered across people, locals, and systems that each solved the same problem a different way. Kevin breaks down the one-person litmus test, the member-address example that shows why the same field means different things to different teams, and why so much critical knowledge lives in people's heads with no written path. Then he gets into the work behind the work: building consensus on a North Star, sorting out data ownership and stewardship, setting governance rules before the hard conversations, and keeping the why visible so a transformation doesn't quietly slide into "just an install." This isn't about union identity. It's about union enablement.

If you lead, work in, or build for a membership organization, this episode was built for you.

📄 Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep9

About Bursting Silver

We're a fully remote consultancy specializing in modern CRM, iMIS, and AI solutions for membership organizations across North America.

Website ▸ https://www.burstingsilver.com/

LinkedIn ▸ https://www.linkedin.com/company/bursting-silver

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Most leaders don't get stuck on AI because they're short on ideas, they get stuck because they have too many and no obvious place to start. Keith Stoute, Chief Product Officer at Bursting Silver and the firm's in-house AI lead, joins Riley Miller to fix that with a tour of quick-win AI use cases a membership organization can actually start on today.

Keith covers iMind, the member-facing assistant BSI built for the iMIS Users Group out of decades of forum Q&A (and the retention bump that followed); a conference assistant that cuts decision fatigue and drives registration; a subject-matter-expert assistant that answers questions from bylaws and regulations in seconds, with citations; self-hosted AI that keeps member data in-house; and an AI interviewing agent that captures institutional knowledge before it walks out the door. He also makes the case for "vibe coding" tools yourself, why an AI governance policy is step one, and the one rule that decides whether any of it works: start small, stay focused, and keep it measurable.

If you lead, work in, or build for a membership organization, this show was built for you.

📄 Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep8

⏱ Chapters

0:00 Cold open — how to actually measure an AI rollout

0:42 Welcome + introducing Keith Stoute

2:04 A prompting trick: #task #context #interview

3:50 iMind — the iMIS Users Group member assistant

5:52 Cleaning the data: garbage in, garbage out

6:55 The retention bump + disclosing AI to members

8:55 Why targeted and focused wins

9:36 Start with an AI governance policy

10:27 Testing before launch: the "Keith filter"

12:05 Why dumping all your data into AI doesn't work

13:06 Member-data privacy + clean datasets

15:06 Vibe coding: build without writing code

17:13 Join wizards, CE calculators, prototyping to 80%

19:16 The conference assistant — driving registration

21:43 The subject-matter-expert assistant on core docs

23:51 Self-hosted LLMs that keep member data in-house

26:41 Succession planning: an AI interviewing agent

29:47 Keeping a human in the loop

31:36 Advice to leaders: pick one measurable win

35:28 Wrap-up

🔗 About Bursting Silver

We're a fully remote consultancy specializing in modern CRM, iMIS, and AI solutions for membership organizations across North America.

Website ▸ https://www.burstingsilver.com/

LinkedIn ▸ https://www.linkedin.com/company/bursting-silver

🎵 Music

Fresh Start by Joakim Karud https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarud

Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0

Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/_fresh-start

Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/XN-tBgJ5CVw

#TheModernMembershipOrg #Associations #iMIS #MembershipManagement #AI #AIGovernance #Nonprofit #BurstingSilver

Most membership organizations don't lose members in one dramatic moment, they lose them quietly. Doug Morris, VP of Sales, Support & Engineering at ASI and a decades-long veteran of the iMIS community, joins Riley Miller to name the five hidden mistakes behind it: email noise, the ignored once-a-year member, not helping members grow, one voice doing all the talking, and a digital experience that isn't worth coming back to.

Doug's fixes don't require a technology overhaul: segment your email, text when it matters, make your mobile app a year-round habit, build learning pathways members are proud of, bring more voices into your content, and call one member a day. Plus the bonus mistake that turns members off faster than anything else (check your checkout page), and why Doug calls DataScout's enhanced profiles the number one secret weapon for retention.

If you lead, work in, or build for a membership organization, this show was built for you.

📄 Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep7

⏱ Chapters0:00 Cold open — the once-a-year member problem1:32 Doug's background: CSI to ASI3:50 The five hidden retention mistakes6:13 Segmentation, dynamic content, real personalization8:08 Cutting through the noise with texting11:02 The once-a-year member + the year-round mobile app13:11 Helping members grow: LMS + certifications15:39 One voice — the 10-minute tune-out18:17 A digital experience worth returning to + call a member a day21:35 Where technology helps: Text Messenger, mobile app, TopClass23:25 Bonus mistake: credit card surcharges26:27 DataScout — the secret weapon28:12 Wrap-up

🔗 About Bursting SilverWe're a fully remote consultancy specializing in modern CRM, iMIS, and AI solutions for membership organizations across North America.Website ▸ https://www.burstingsilver.com/LinkedIn ▸ https://www.linkedin.com/company/bursting-silver

🌐 Follow the showInstagram ▸ https://www.instagram.com/burstingsilver/X / Twitter ▸ https://x.com/burstingsilverFacebook ▸ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579548728138TikTok ▸ https://www.tiktok.com/@burstingsilverYouTube ▸ https://www.youtube.com/@BurstingSilver

🎵 MusicFresh Start by Joakim Karud https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarudCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/_fresh-startMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/XN-tBgJ5CVw

#TheModernMembershipOrg #Associations #iMIS #MembershipManagement #MemberRetention #DataScout #BurstingSilver

When Ellen Turner started her first iMIS database job, she didn't have a manual. She had a community.

Two weeks into the role, she was sent to her first iUG conference, where seasoned members took her under their wing, answered her "I'm brand new and have no idea what this means" questions, and sent her home with pages of notes. That experience didn't just get her up to speed, it set the course for everything that followed.

Whether you're on the verge of upgrading to EMS, recovering from staff turnover, or just trying to write a SQL expression that won't throw an error, there's a community of people who have been exactly where you are, and who genuinely want to help. As Ellen puts it, not everybody makes their ice cream sundae the same way, but everyone walks away with a sundae.

Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep6

#TheModernMembershipOrg #Community #iMISUsersGroup #AI #iMIS #MembershipManagement #BurstingSilver

This episode features James Schwartz, CTO of Bursting Silver, discussing how AI can be practically adopted by non-profit organizations.

In this episode:

• Why so much AI "demos well but doesn't deliver", and how to tell the difference before you buy
• The practical, unglamorous use cases that actually move the needle: member inquiry triage, data cleanup, auto-tagging and segmentation, and predictive analytics
• How Data Scout took members from a 1–2% engagement rate to 15–20%
• Why being transparent that a message is AI-generated builds member trust instead of breaking it
• How to adopt AI in bite-sized chunks instead of as a daunting transformation project and what James would tell a stretched executive director to do first

Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep5

#TheModernMembershipOrg #AI #iMIS #MembershipManagement #NonProfitTechnology #BurstingSilver

Ask most technology vendors what makes a union different from an association and you'll get a blank stare. The answer isn't just regulatory complexity or collective bargaining agreements, it's the nature of membership itself. When someone joins a union, they don't sign up for a service. They join a movement. And that changes everything about what technology has to do.Bursting Silver CEO Al Povoledo returns to talk specifically about unions: what makes them operationally unlike any other organization, why a bad member experience erodes institutional trust in a way that doesn't happen anywhere else, and where AI is already producing real results on the ground.The AI conversation in the union world is contentious. Al cuts through with concrete examples already in production, grievance intake systems, member chatbots trained on collective bargaining agreements, onboarding tools that walk new members through their rights from day one. And for organizers worried about their role: AI doesn't replace the organizer. It tells the organizer exactly where to show up, why, what to do, and when.If you work in or around unions, labour organizations, or the membership sector, this one's built for you.📄 Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep4

#TheModernMembershipOrg #Unions #LabourOrganizations #AI #iMIS #MembershipManagement #UnionTechnology #BurstingSilver

Everyone thinks they know what change management means. Usually they picture a training session or a few all-staff emails. James Harrison has spent 25 years in technology, 15 of those deep in iMIS implementations, and he'll tell you that's barely scratching the surface.

Bursting Silver's Director of Client Success joins Riley Miller to talk about what change management actually requires: it's the project management of the human side of change, happening on two tracks simultaneously. Your staff are navigating a new system. So are your members. Most organizations put all their energy into the first group and forget about the second until someone calls to complain.

James shares the patterns he's seen over 15 years, the internal champion who sets the tone for an entire team, the QA session that fell apart because everyone was nodding but nobody was actually ready, and the one thing every executive should do before any system change.

If you work in or around associations, unions, or regulatory bodies, this one's for you.

📄 Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep3

#TheModernMembershipOrg #ChangeManagement #Associations #iMIS #MembershipManagement #NonprofitTech #AssociationManagement #BurstingSilver

Most association leaders know the word. Relevance. They know they need to earn it, that the old default position is gone. The real question is whether they can execute on it.

Bursting Silver CEO Al Povoledo joins Riley Miller to break down the pressures shaping association leadership in 2026: the relevance gap, rising member expectations, and why technology doesn't fix a broken foundation, it exposes one.

Al also shares the four-step playbook he gives every association leader who asks where to start with technology or AI.His advice after 30 years? Don't start with the technology.

If you lead, work in, or build for a membership organization, this show was built for you.

📄 Show notes, transcript, and links: https://www.burstingsilver.com/podcast/ep2

#TheModernMembershipOrg #Associations #AssociationLeadership #iMIS #MembershipManagement #AI #DigitalTransformation #BurstingSilver