2025 Association Community Benchmarks: The State of Online Communities

Online communities are one of the most reliable ways associations create member value—and the data backs this up. The 2025 Association Community Benchmark Report analyzes real activity from Higher Logic communities over the past year to show what “good” community engagement looks like today and how you can keep improving your member engagement in the future.

The report provides baselines for logins, contributors, replies, discussion volume, library usage, and digest email performance. You can also explore how factors like community size, maturity, automation, and integrations improve your association’s impact.

Use these benchmarks to set realistic goals, brief leadership, and prioritize the programs that move engagement the most.

We’ve summarized some of the highlights below – download the report for a deeper look!

Summary: Community Benchmark Highlights

• Community engagement stayed strong year over year, despite AI-driven disruption that’s caused decreases in general website traffic.
• Average month: On average, online communities see 563 unique logins, 1,156 total logins, 68 contributors, 163 discussion actions each month.
• Seasonality: Community engagement peaks in October and January and dips in August and December. Plan campaigns accordingly.
• Digest emails dominate: Community digest emails have a 56% open rate (daily consolidated), 54% (weekly consolidated), 44% (daily) vs the 36% average open rate for typical association email.
• Resource libraries drive value: Association online communities saw 293 new resources added and 539 downloads per year on average.
• Automation + gamification = lift: Online communities using automation and gamification to foster engagement see over 2X the logins and higher discussion activity.
• Integrations multiply impact: Communities that incorporate other programs like volunteering/mentoring, job boards, chapters, and marketing see large gains in logins, contributors, and discussions.
• Long-term investment matters: Communities >5 years have higher engagement, averaging 673 logins and ~203 new threads/month.
• Engagement funnel: Most members consume content on your online community; a smaller group creates and contributes. Aim to convert your consumers into contributors with nudges, prompts, and recognition.
• Community discussion reply gap: ~59% of posts get no reply—this is a big opportunity to increase perceived value. Keep an eye on unanswered threads and nurture replies via ambassador programs and automation.

Why it matters: Community-generated, peer-led content remains a differentiator for associations, driving engagement, fueling SEO and AI discovery, and providing ongoing value for members. Now, more than ever, access to human-centered connection and innovation stands out for your users, and your online community provides benefits AI can’t replace.

What changed (and What Didn’t) in 2025

Despite rapid changes in how people find information, online community activity stayed strong. Communities are a reliable, consistent engagement channel and a key piece of your association’s digital infrastructure.

Unlike web content, communities are dynamic, relationship-driven, and deeply personalized. They’s also an ongoing source of new insights and innovation. When new challenges emerge, members often turn to their online community for ways to solve them.

This is your cue to invest in habits (community digests, automated engagement prompts, gamified recognition) and structure (content tagging, library curation, segmented and personalized sub-communities) that keep community value compounding.

What Improves Community Engagement?

Community Performance by Size

How does an online community’s size affect average engagement?

• XL (>50k users): The largest communities have the largest absolute activity (e.g., ~1,297 unique logins; ~295 discussion actions) but ~10% of users log in monthly.
• S (500–1k users): While smaller communities have fewer logins (avg 44), 36% of those who login are contributors—the highest contributor ratio.

So what? Scale intimacy. Use micro-communities, targeted digests, and recognition to keep even large spaces feeling personal.

Community Performance by Age

Does long term investment in your online community improve engagement over time? Yes!

• Online communities that have been around for more than 5 years saw higher unique monthly logins (637) contributors (86), and discussion activity (203) 86.
• Online communities under 2 years old had higher contributor rates (~16%) but low volume. Make sure you seed community content early on with with staff prompts to get people talking.

So what? Communities tend to exhibit higher volumes of activity, both in member engagement and in content generation, the longer they’ve been around. The longer your association has a community, the better staff get at managing it and the more members come to see it as a resource. It’s important to nurture engagement early on to build momentum.

Early investment in discussion prompts, staff engagement, and member onboarding can accelerate the journey toward you community becoming a high-performing, content-rich space for members.

Email Digests Are Your MVP

Online community email digests continue to outperform standard email campaigns by a wide margin:

• Daily consolidated digests have the highest open rate at 56%
•  Weekly consolidated digests have an open rate of 54%
• Standard daily digests have an open rate of 44%.

So what? Average association email open rates are 36%. Community-generated content is inherently more timely, personalized, and relevant to members than traditional outbound messages. Digests highlight real-time conversations from members and fresh resources, providing immediate value without association staff needing to manually populate newsletters.

Keep consolidated digests on and let members set cadence. If you want to improve your digest open rate consider testing timing using tools like Higher Logic’s ai-powered Smart Newsletter to provide deeper personalization.

Resource Libraries = Tangible Value

Is it worth hosting a resource library in your online community? Consider the activity resource libraries generated:

• On average, online communities had 293 new entries
• On average, online community resource libraries had 539 downloads

So what? Resource libraries are a cornerstone of value within online communities, playing a critical role in knowledge sharing, content access, and professional development. They can help you reduce inbound requests and questions for staff, increase the visibility of thought leadership, and provide an easy-to-access archive for event materials.

But members will only see that value if you do. Have a plan and process for filling your community’s resource library. Seed high-value content that will inspire others to upload. Tag content rigorously (or use tools like Higher Logic’s AI-suggested tags to help). Highlight “Most Downloaded” and “Editor’s Picks” and celebrate member-uploaded resources to help users find the best your community resource library offers.

Move the Needle with Automation & Gamification

Higher Logic’s online community platform has built-in automation and gamification because they work! Across all engagement metrics – monthly logins, discussion activity, and unique contributions – communities that use automation and gamification far outpace those that don’t.

Make Your Community Central to Programs

Communities perform best when they’re connected to broader association functions—such as volunteering, mentoring, chapters, job boards, and marketing. By transforming the community into a one-stop-shop for engagement, associations increase member interaction, content creation, and program participation.

• Communities that incorporate volunteering & mentoring see 2.4× more logins, 2× more discussions, and nearly 2x more contributors.
• Communities that include a job board have nearly 2× logins & contributors and 60% more discussions.
• Organizations that include chapters and microsites in their community have 2.6× more logins, +88% contributors, and +73% discussions.
• When marketing tools are integrated with the community see at least 29% more logins, 76% more discussions, and 40% more contributors.

Action: Treat community as the digital front door. Bring jobs, mentoring, volunteering, chapters, and campaigns into the same place members already go.

What to Do Next

So what should associations and community managers do with these community benchmarks? Take them as inspiration to review and refine your community engagement strategies. Here are some ideas:

1. Auto-subscribe new members to the community and community digests. Feature the online community in onboarding to help orient new members to all the value they can find there.
2. Plan a content calendar for your online community. Make the most of seasonal cycles (like January and October peaks, and August and December lulls in activity). Tie community content and prompts to your organization’s big events and goals.
3. Close the reply gap: Regularly pull reports on unanswered threads and establish internal processes for getting replies. Empower ambassadors to welcome new members and respond to unanswered threads.
4. Launch weekly prompts and polls—low-friction posting that converts readers to contributors.
5. Curate the library with tags, featured picks, and recognition for uploads.
6. Turn on automation rules for things like welcoming new members, inactivity nudge (7–30–60 days), “return to thread,” “new resource in your topic,” and milestone congrats.
7. Enable gamification with named badges aligned to your values; highlight leaders monthly.
8. Integrate programs: Jobs → visible in community; mentoring/volunteering → surfaced via automation; chapters → supported via microsites.
9. Track your own benchmarks (logins, contributors, reply rate, library downloads) and report wins back to stakeholders.
10. Download the report and watch our webinar “From Data to Action: 2025 Association Community Benchmarks” to dive deeper into online community trends and metrics and explore strategies that can help you improve.