As 2025 comes to a close, one thing is unmistakably clear: This was a year of meaningful progress and exciting transformation for associations, nonprofits, and senior-living organizations. Across the conferences, summits, and events we attended, leaders leaned into big opportunities — exploring how technology, culture, and member experience can work together to create stronger, more purpose-driven organizations in a quickly evolving world.
From AI adoption to human-centered leadership, and from smarter workflows to community-driven innovation, the conversations of 2025 revealed the trends that will shape how organizations grow, serve, and thrive in the new year.
This year-end recap pulls together the most powerful ideas, insights, and moments from some of the biggest events enSYNC joined throughout 2025. Here’s what stood out, and what’s coming with us into 2026.
At this year’s ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo (Aug. 9–12, 2025), one theme towered above the rest: Artificial intelligence isn’t the future of association work. It’s the present, and it’s accelerating fast.
With more than a dozen sessions dedicated to AI, the conversation moved far beyond tools and trends. Leaders focused on how to blend AI with the human touch, ensuring technology enhances — not replaces — the empathy, judgment, and relationship-building that associations are built on.
Several sessions also underscored the need for ethical AI governance, urging associations to embed accountability, transparency, and oversight into their workflows as AI adoption grows.
Bonus: enSYNC’s own Tanessa Busch, CAE, was recognized at ASAE Annual as a brand-new CAE member!
At the LeadingAge Annual Meeting (Nov. 2-5, 2025), author and columnist David Brooks set the tone with a keynote centered on a deceptively simple but powerful idea: Leadership begins with truly seeing and valuing people. He challenged senior living leaders to build cultures where others feel known, understood, and cared for — reminding attendees that connection is not just a soft skill, but the foundation of effective service and mission-driven work.
That message didn’t stay in the keynote hall. It carried through the entire conference experience. Attendees — including enSYNC’s Amanda Feil and Josh Kozinski — took part in LeadingAge’s Soleful Giving initiative, donating socks to support individuals in need throughout Boston, the host city. The act reflected the heart of the profession: small, intentional gestures that honor dignity and meet practical needs.
The takeaway: LeadingAge 2025 underscored that the future of senior living isn’t defined only by systems and strategies; it’s defined by how we show up for people. When leaders lead with empathy and service, culture and care follow.
At the TSAE New Ideas Annual Conference (Sept. 7-9, 2025), enSYNC’s Amanda Feil, CAE, Director of Operations, teamed up with Cathi Hight of Hight Performance Group for an energizing interactive session focused on the toughest challenges facing associations today. Rather than a traditional lecture, the session functioned as a live problem-solving forum, where attendees shaped the conversation with their real-world struggles around member retention, engagement, segmentation, and how to make better use of member data.
Participants came ready with frustrations, “what ifs,” and long-standing membership puzzles — and the room quickly became a collaborative space for sharing solutions, testing ideas, and reframing persistent barriers. The energy reflected exactly what TSAE’s New Ideas Conference is known for: practical innovation powered by community insight.
The inaugural Sage Future conference (June 3-5, 2025) brought together an impressive group of thought leaders, innovators, and operators united around a clear theme: high performance. But the message wasn’t about pushing harder — it was about working smarter. Speakers emphasized that true high performance comes from clarity, efficiency, and intentional systems that remove friction rather than add to it.
That philosophy mirrors Sage’s vision for the future. The company showcased its commitment to building tools that make life easier for finance teams across nonprofits, associations, and senior-living organizations. From automation to real-time insights, Sage continues to focus on removing administrative burden so teams can focus on mission, strategy, and impact.
The iUG iMIS Users Summit (April 23–25, 2025) brought together association and nonprofit professionals for three days of hands-on learning, practical skill-building, and community connection. With a program designed for every level of user, the Summit delivered a rich blend of technical training and real-world application — exactly what the iMIS community values most.
Attendees dove into sessions that highlighted what’s possible when teams fully leverage the platform. enSYNC Senior Consultant Tina Haglund, CiA, CiP, CiU, COWA, CTCA, was a standout contributor again this year. Her sessions, “Unlocking Automation in iMIS” and “Setup & Optimization of iMIS Events,” gave attendees actionable frameworks to streamline processes, reduce manual touchpoints, and build more efficient, member-friendly systems.
The ASI Executive Business Summit 2025 (Feb. 19-21, 2025) brought together association leaders, technology partners, and innovators for three days of strategy, collaboration, and forward-looking conversation. Themes centered on how associations can better align systems and strategies to deliver stronger member experiences — while leveraging technology in ways that drive measurable value.
For enSYNC, the event also included two major moments of recognition. Our team was honored with the Client Satisfaction Award, celebrating our commitment to exceptional service and partnership, and the ASI Chairman’s Circle Award, recognizing top performance and leadership within the ASI partner community. Both awards reflect the hard work of our team and our focus on building meaningful, results-driven client relationships.
We hope to see you at one of our 2026 events! Here’s a preview of that schedule so far: