How is New Empact Work different from OpenWater?
An honest feature-by-feature comparison: pricing, AI boundaries, integrations, and where each platform fits best.
Read moreResources for association program leaders.
Guides and perspectives for the people running innovation, awards, grants, and scholarship programs.
Articles & guides
Practical insight for association staff, volunteer chairs, and AMC partners running high-stakes member programs.
Talk to anyone who’s administered a scholarship program and you’ll hear about the folders.
Staff is the one stitching it together.
Read moreEvery awards and grants program produces a decision someone will eventually question.
When that happens, the program needs to be defensible. Not perfect. Defensible.
Read moreA profession that respects its volunteers gets the volunteers it deserves.
The thing I respect most about associations is that they take volunteer labor seriously.
Read moreA program that runs well looks like a program that was easy to run.
It almost never was. It was carried.
Read moreAn AI agent can run your entire awards, grants, or scholarship program end to end.
The only question that matters is whether you can trust what it did.
Read moreCustomization is technical debt with a smile.
After 17 years on the IT side of associations, I’ve watched what “we’ll customize it for you” actually delivers.
Read moreGovernance shouldn’t be an Enterprise upsell.
Smaller AMCs and associations often need governance more, not less.
Read moreThe line worth drawing for AI in association programs.
What AI is good at. What it shouldn’t do.
Read moreWhat an API means for an executive director.
You open Claude. You ask. It answers.
Read moreEvery association tech vendor is adding “AI” to their pitch deck.
No API means no agent.
Read moreIf you’re running programs for 5 associations, you’re running 5 rubrics.
At one program, that’s a staff headache. Across ten, it’s a positioning problem.
Read moreIf your program needs a “final_final_v3.xlsx”, you don’t have a process.
You have a moment where everything gets pulled together at the end. Manually.
Read moreWhy everything changes at 30 submissions.
Nothing is broken, yet everything requires attention.
Read moreThe duck on calm water.
Many association programs run on staff heroics. From the outside, the program looks calm.
Read moreWhy I’m building New Empact Work.
Why I stepped away from an executive role to build something purpose-built for associations.
Read more