STC Membership: The Cash You Save May Be Your Own
by Gloria H. McConnell, Sherry J. Michaels, and Katherine E. Graden, Senior Members, Phoenix Chapter

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the November 2004 issue of Rough Draft, the newsletter of the Phoenix Chapter STC. It appears here with changes.

Even if you know all the career benefits you can realize through STC membership and attendance at STC conferences, you may still wonder if the costs are reasonable, and how they compare to the fees that other professional societies charge. Well, guess what? Other professional associations don’t match the value that STC offers.

Recently, we compared STC membership fees with membership fees charged by other professional associations that attract people in our profession. We also looked at registration fees for STC’s annual conference versus fees for nine other technical communication or training development conferences. And we found that, in both cases, STC offers the best deals.

Membership Fees
Table 1 shows how STC’s new range of membership fees compares with other organizations’ fees.

Association Membership Fees
American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) $180 for national membership; local chapter membership fees typically range from $25 to $85 per year.
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Communications Society (IEEE Communications) $191 for U.S. members; membership in other IEEE societies costs an additional $10 to $40 per year. Publications are extra per year.
Association of Computing Machinery Special Interest Group for Documentation (ACM SIGDOC) $134 plus separate charges for print materials.
Society for Technical Communication (STC) $145 for full membership including publications; $72.50 for retired members; $125 for limited membership; $135 for e-membership; $50 for student membership.

Table 1. Association Membership Fees

STC’s fees are comparable to or less expensive than fees charged by similar professional associations. Think about that when deciding how to spend your professional association dollars!