Business Associations (U.S.) — NAICS 813910

An investor's primer for a general audience — public and private.

1. Overview

A "business association" is the collective self-organization of an industry: chambers of commerce, trade associations, real estate boards, farm bureaus, and manufacturers' and growers' groups. These are membership bodies whose members are companies (and sometimes individual practitioners), and whose job is to advance the members' shared commercial interests — lobbying legislators, setting voluntary standards, running trade shows, publishing research, and certifying practitioners.[1]

The first thing to understand is unusual: this is largely a nonprofit field with no owners and no equity. Most business associations are organized under Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) — "business leagues" — which means they pay no federal income tax on their core activities, have no shareholders, and reinvest any surplus rather than distributing profit.[2] There is no stock in the National Association of Realtors (NAR) or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to buy, and no way for private equity to acquire one. So "how owners make money" is the wrong frame. The right questions are how these organizations fund themselves, why members keep paying, and — for an investor — how to gain exposure to the money that flows through the sector.

Why an investor cares anyway. Business associations sit on top of large downstream commerce: the events and exhibitions they run, the software that manages their members and dues, the media and data attached to each industry, and the outsourced firms that operate them. That surrounding ecosystem is investable, and some of it is public. The associations themselves are also a live market signal — where lobbying dollars and standards-setting concentrate tells you where regulation and competitive rules are about to move.

• Public-market route: you cannot own an association, but you can own the listed event, information, and exhibition companies that monetize them — and the alternative-asset managers whose funds hold the private ones (Section 4).
• Private route: association management companies (AMCs), event organizers, association-management software (AMS), media, data, and credentialing businesses are largely privately held and change hands in the private market.

2. What it is and how it's structured

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 813910, Business Associations, covers establishments primarily engaged in promoting the business interests of their members. The Census definition names the typical activities: conducting industry research, developing market statistics, sponsoring quality and certification standards, lobbying public officials, and publishing for members. Illustrative examples are chambers of commerce, trade associations, manufacturers' associations, real estate boards, growers'/farm associations, and better business bureaus.[1]

Ownership and governance. Predominantly tax-exempt, member-governed nonprofits — 501(c)(6) business leagues, controlled through member-elected boards and professional staff rather than through equity owners.[2] Our federal statistics file contains no legal-form split, so this primer does not put a precise number on the nonprofit-versus-for-profit or volunteer share. In practice a minority of tiny local chambers are unincorporated or run entirely by volunteers, and many associations employ no staff of their own at all — they hire an association management company (AMC), an outsourced for-profit firm that supplies executives, accounting, events, and technology under contract (Section 8).

What this code excludes (important, because adjacent codes catch things people assume belong here):

• 813920 Professional Organizations — bodies promoting the interests of a profession rather than an industry: bar associations, medical societies (the American Medical Association sits here, not in 813910), engineering and accounting societies.
• 813930 Labor Unions and 813940 Political Organizations — worker representation and political/campaign bodies.
• 813410 Civic and Social Organizations — Rotary, Kiwanis, fraternal groups.
• 541820 lobbying/public-relations firms and 561920 convention/trade-show organizers — when a for-profit firm runs the trade show or does the lobbying, that revenue lands in a services code, not here. This matters for the size figures below.
• Member-owned cooperatives performing a specific operating function (joint buying or marketing) — classified by that primary activity.[1]

So 813910 is specifically the industry-facing, business-interest slice of the nonprofit membership world.

3. How big it is

Federal statistics for the industry's own operations (ground-truth figures from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Small Business Administration, SBA):

A few things stand out. The average establishment is small — roughly seven employees and about $2 million of receipts, though the receipts figure is 2022 and the employment figure 2023, so don't read the two as a single-year income statement — yet average pay is high (about $99,000 = $10.442bn payroll ÷ 105,286 employees), reflecting concentrations of professional lobbyists, executives, and policy staff in Washington and state capitals.[3] The industry is exceptionally fragmented: the four largest firms (CR4) take just 6.5% of receipts, the top 50 (CR50) only 24.5%, and the HHI — a standard concentration measure where 10,000 is a monopoly — is 20, one of the lowest readings you will see in any U.S. industry.[4] Thousands of local chambers and niche trade groups sit alongside a handful of large national bodies.

Undercount and interpretation caveats — read these before quoting the $30 billion.

1. Receipts measure the associations' operating budgets, not their economic footprint. The $30.2 billion is dues plus program revenue collected by the nonprofits themselves. It says nothing about the value they steer — a trade group with a $50 million budget can shape billion-dollar regulatory outcomes.
2. Outsourced activity leaks to other codes. When an AMC or a for-profit event company runs an association, much of the real economic activity is booked under management-services or trade-show codes, not 813910. The true ecosystem is larger than the headline suggests.
3. The long tail is under-measured. County Business Patterns (CBP) covers only employer establishments with paid employees; it excludes the self-employed, organizations without an employer identification number or payroll, and most government bodies, and the Economic Census likewise excludes government-owned establishments.[6] Tiny all-volunteer chambers therefore fall below the reporting threshold, so establishment counts capture the sector's activity better than its sheer number of organizations.

Our stats file contains no national figures for membership, renewal rates, dues mix, conference attendance, event margins, or operating reserves — the operating metrics investors most want. Those must be pulled from individual filings or management. And because the core industry is nonprofit, standard for-profit metrics — margin, profit, enterprise value — simply do not exist for it.

4. The investable universe

Direct plays: effectively none. Business associations are nonprofits with no equity. You cannot buy a share of the U.S. Chamber, NAR, or the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). What follows is (a) the largest associations, shown for scale and as a map of where money and influence sit, and (b) the investable ecosystem around them.

The largest U.S. business associations (nonprofit — not investable; shown for scale):

(The American Medical Association, ~$546 million, is often grouped in but is technically a professional organization, NAICS 813920.)[16]

The investable ecosystem (public and private):

Public operating proxies — event and information companies:

Public alternative-asset managers with private-market exposure:

• Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO) — its funds are taking Emerald (below) private.[23][24]
• Blackstone (NYSE: BX) — owns Clarion Events and Cvent through its funds.[25][26]

Public software (adjacent, limited): Blackbaud (Nasdaq: BLKB) sells nonprofit/fundraising and membership software; it is more fundraising- than trade-association-focused, so treat it as an adjacent, not pure-play, exposure.

Note on Emerald Holding (formerly NYSE: EEX): the U.S.-focused pure-play trade-show operator (~$399 million revenue, 100+ events) that was the cleanest listed U.S. exposure is being taken private by Apollo-managed funds (alongside Questex) in a 2026 deal — a further reminder of how scarce direct U.S.-listed exposure is.[23][24]

Major private operators and owners:

Most of these are adjacent businesses, not establishments classified inside NAICS 813910. The cleanest listed exposure is the events and exhibitions layer (Informa, RELX, GL events), which monetizes exactly the trade shows associations run or co-host; the software, media, data, and AMC layers are largely private, increasingly owned by private-equity platforms.

5. How the money works

A business association's economics come down to two buckets: dues and non-dues revenue. Historically dues were nearly everything — about 96% of association income in the 1950s.[17] Today they are a minority for most groups: across trade associations membership dues average roughly 45% of revenue, and for professional bodies closer to 30%, with benchmarking commonly targeting a 40–60% non-dues share for financial stability (older ASAE/Avenue M survey data, useful as orders of magnitude).[17]

The revenue engine, in the metrics that matter for this industry:

• Membership dues — recurring, usually tiered by member size (a large corporate member pays far more than a small firm). The key operating metrics are member count, retention/renewal rate, and dues yield per member. Retention is the association equivalent of same-store sales: renew 90%+ of members a year and you compound; leak members and you shrink fast.
• Trade shows and conferences — usually the single largest non-dues line, earning attendee registration, exhibit-hall booth fees, and sponsorships. Booth square-footage sell-through and sponsorship bookings are the levers; a flagship annual show can fund a big share of the whole organization.
• Certification and credentialing — exam and renewal fees, often high-margin and sticky because the credential gates a career.
• Data, benchmarking, and market statistics — selling the industry's numbers back to the industry.
• Publications, advertising, job boards, and affinity programs — magazines, member career centers, and revenue-share deals on insurance or services offered to members.

The bottom line is a surplus, not a profit. Because these are 501(c)(6) nonprofits, any excess of revenue over expense becomes reserves (unrestricted net assets) reinvested in the mission — the U.S. Chamber, for instance, ran ~$226 million of revenue in FY2024.[14] There is no dividend and no equity value to accrue, so the financial-health questions are dues retention, net member growth, revenue per member, non-dues share, reserves, and personnel cost.

One tax wrinkle members and investors should know: dues to a 501(c)(6) are generally deductible by the paying business as an ordinary expense — but the slice spent on lobbying and political activity is not deductible to members (IRC Section 162(e)). Each association must either tell members the nondeductible percentage of their dues or pay a "proxy tax" itself.[8] This is why heavy-lobbying groups send members an annual "your dues are X% nondeductible" notice.

For the event and association-service companies that are investable, the relevant metrics differ: exhibitor renewal and booth sell-through, attendee registrations and repeat attendance, sponsorship/advertising bookings, revenue and contribution margin per event, customer concentration by association or sponsor, deferred revenue and cash conversion, leverage and free cash flow, and — for AMS vendors — software retention and churn.[20][21]

6. What drives demand

• The size and health of the member industry. An association's addressable market is its industry's companies. More banks means more potential ABA members; consolidation that shrinks the member base shrinks the association.
• Regulatory and legislative threat — the counter-cyclical driver. Associations grow strongest when new rules, taxes, or scrutiny threaten an industry; members pay for collective defense precisely when stakes rise. Federal lobbying hit a record $4.44 billion in 2024, with NAR (~$63.5 million) and the U.S. Chamber (~$53.4 million) among the very top spenders.[18]
• Standards and credentials. Certification, quality standards, training, and continuing education create durable, excludable member value.[1]
• Perceived member return on investment (ROI). Members constantly weigh dues against tangible benefits; associations that can't demonstrate value bleed members.
• The live-events economy. Because trade shows fund so much of the sector, demand tracks business travel, marketing budgets, and exhibitors' willingness to spend on face-to-face selling.[21]
• Business formation and technology. New firms and sectors spawn new associations; cloud software, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) can lift member retention, event monetization, and staff productivity.

Forward-looking judgment: core dues and advocacy revenue should be steadier than discretionary conferences, sponsorships, and advertising. The most attractive investable businesses combine recurring software or membership revenue with proprietary data, strong brands, and events that are hard to replace.

7. Regulation

Business associations are lightly regulated as businesses but tightly watched in specific areas:

• Tax status (IRS). 501(c)(6) exemption requires promoting a common business interest and not operating as an ordinary for-profit or providing private inurement. Regularly conducted commercial income unrelated to the exempt purpose can trigger unrelated business income tax (UBIT), and most tax-exempt bodies must file a public Form 990.[2][7]
• Lobbying disclosure. Lobbying germane to an association's purpose generally does not destroy exemption, but groups that lobby must register and file under the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), and many states impose their own rules; Section 162(e) governs the member-deductibility mechanics above.[8][9]
• Election law. Political spending generally must run through a separate political action committee (PAC) and comply with Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules; direct corporate-style electioneering is constrained.
• Antitrust — the sharpest risk. Associations are, by design, gatherings of competitors, which makes them a natural venue for illegal coordination on price, output, or market rules; the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) explicitly flags standard-setting, information sharing, and membership restrictions as exposure points.[10] This is not theoretical: in 2024 NAR agreed to pay $418 million and scrap its cooperative-commission rules to settle antitrust litigation that had produced a $1.8 billion jury verdict for keeping agent commissions artificially high.[19]

State and local rules also bear on events, venues, accessibility, employment, sales tax, privacy, and data security.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

"Competition" here is unusual. Associations mostly don't compete for the same members — one industry tends to have one dominant trade group — so rivalry is over share of member wallet and relevance, plus turf fights when industries converge (fintech blurring banking and technology) or a breakaway group forms. They compete on member trust, policy influence, content and data quality, standards, credentials, and community density rather than price. The federal data confirm the fragmentation: CR4 of 6.5%, CR50 of 24.5%, HHI of 20.[4]

Three structural dynamics matter:

• The free-rider problem. Advocacy wins benefit an entire industry, members and non-members alike, so associations must bundle exclusive, excludable benefits (data, certification, event access, insurance discounts) to justify dues. Groups that can't struggle.
• Consolidation of members drives consolidation of associations. As industries consolidate (fewer, larger banks; fewer independent brokers), the member base shrinks and small associations merge or fold.
• Outsourcing, professionalization, and private-equity roll-ups. AMCs (SmithBucklin, Kellen, MCI and accredited peers) let small and mid-size associations run professionally without their own staff.[31] This is where the operating economics get genuinely investable, and the for-profit layer is consolidating fast: Blackstone owns Clarion and Cvent; Truelink bought GES; TA Associates built Momentive Software, which then acquired Personify; and Apollo is taking Emerald private.[23][25][26][27][28][29] The rationale is cross-selling — one platform spanning membership management, events, learning, payments, content, and data.

9. Risks

• Member-base erosion. Consolidation, digitization, or decline of the underlying industry directly shrinks dues and event revenue.
• Antitrust and litigation. The NAR settlement is a live warning: association rules that restrain competition can produce nine- and ten-figure liabilities and forced structural change.[19]
• Event concentration and shock risk. Heavy reliance on one or two annual trade shows is a single point of failure — the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown of live events devastated event-dependent associations and operators. Non-annual and biennial events also swing year-to-year results, so analyze the event calendar, not a single growth rate.[21]
• Commoditization of value. Market data, standards, and education that associations once sold exclusively are now widely available; AI further lowers the cost of producing research and publications, pressuring the case for dues.
• Cyclicality of non-dues revenue. Sponsorships, exhibits, and advertising fall in downturns and now carry more of the budget than dues do.
• Political and reputational exposure. Advocacy positions can alienate members or draw regulatory backlash; governance conflicts between staff, boards, and politically diverse members are common.
• Tax-status risk. Aggressive commercial activity can jeopardize 501(c)(6) exemption or trigger UBIT.[2][7]
• On the investable side: private-equity leverage and integration risk in software/event roll-ups, customer concentration, and control/privacy of member data.
• Measurement risk. Federal data do not capture the entire volunteer, government, or non-employer ecosystem, so top-down sizing is approximate.

10. How to invest and the outlook

There is no direct way to invest in a business association — they are nonprofits with no equity. Exposure comes only through the ecosystem.

Public-market routes:

• Events and exhibitions — the cleanest listed exposure. Informa (INF) and RELX (REL/RELX) are the global majors; GL events (GLO) is a European-listed integrated operator. Treat all three as event/information proxies, not pure-play 813910 companies.[20][21][22]
• Alternative-asset managers — Apollo (APO) and Blackstone (BX) give indirect exposure through funds that own Emerald, Clarion, and Cvent, but their results depend on broad alt-asset economics.[23][25][26]
• Adjacent software — Blackbaud (BLKB) and peers, understanding that public AMS exposure is thin and mostly private.

Private-market routes: AMCs (SmithBucklin, Kellen, MCI); event organizers and venue services; association-management software and payments; trade media, data, certification, and career platforms; and platform roll-ups of small, specialized event or association businesses. Because a nonprofit association has no distributable ownership interest, "investing" in the body itself usually takes the form of grants, mission-related loans, or structured securities into a taxable subsidiary — subject to legal and tax review. Diligence should center on member/customer retention, recurring-versus-transactional revenue, event concentration, renewal visibility, data ownership, venue commitments, leverage, and governance.

Near-term drivers to watch:

• Regulatory intensity. With federal lobbying at record levels, associations in active legislative battles should see robust dues and advocacy demand — a tailwind for the sector's relevance even as it is a headwind for the industries paying.[18]
• The antitrust overhang. Post-NAR, expect more scrutiny of association rules and standard-setting; higher legal cost and possible forced structural change, with the real-estate commission overhaul as the template.[19]
• Event recovery and consolidation. Live B2B events have rebuilt past their pre-2020 base, and ownership is consolidating into a few large operators and PE platforms — the most direct way public investors participate. Informa's management is targeting more than 7% underlying revenue growth for its B2B Live Events division in 2026, though that is company guidance, not an industry forecast.[20]
• Digitization of membership. Associations are shifting toward year-round digital engagement, data products, and hybrid events, favoring the software and media vendors that serve them.

The core industry will remain a fragmented, nonprofit, member-governed field with no equity to buy. The opportunity for investors is not the associations themselves but the increasingly consolidated, for-profit layer — events, software, media, and outsourced management — that runs on top of them.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS Search: 813910 Business Associations (definition, examples, and exclusions)," 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=813910&input=813910&year=2022
2. Internal Revenue Service, "Business Leagues (501(c)(6))," accessed 2026. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/business-leagues
3. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, Table CB2300CBP (NAICS 813910: establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll) — Histometrics ingested federal statistics. https://data.census.gov/table/CBP2023.CB2300CBP?codeset=naics~813910
4. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Concentration of Largest Firms, Table EC2200SIZECONCEN (NAICS 813910: firms, receipts, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI) — Histometrics ingested federal statistics. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?codeset=naics~813910
5. U.S. Small Business Administration, "Table of Small Business Size Standards," 2023 (NAICS 813910 = $15.5 million average annual receipts) — Histometrics ingested federal statistics. https://data.sba.gov/dataset/small-business-size-standards
6. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns Methodology" (employer-establishment coverage; exclusions), accessed 2026. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
7. Internal Revenue Service, "Instructions for Form 990" and "Unrelated Business Income Tax," 2025–2026. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i990
8. Internal Revenue Service, "Nondeductible Lobbying and Political Expenditures" / IRC Section 162(e), accessed 2026. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/nondeductible-lobbying-and-political-expenditures
9. U.S. Senate, "Lobbying Disclosure Act — Registration of Lobbyists," accessed 2026. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/Lobbying/Lobby_Disclosure_Act/4_Registration_of_Lobbyists.htm
10. U.S. Federal Trade Commission, "Spotlight on Trade Associations," accessed 2026. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/spotlight-trade-associations
11. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — Form 990, FY2024," 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/530241211
12. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "National Association of Realtors — Form 990, FY2024," 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/361520690
13. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "American Petroleum Institute — Form 990, FY2024," 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/130433430
14. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America — Form 990, FY2024," 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/530045720
15. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "American Bankers Association — Form 990," 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521001304
16. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "American Medical Association — Form 990, FY2024," 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/360727175
17. ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) / Avenue M Group, "Association revenue mix — dues vs. non-dues benchmarking," 2016–2017. https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_magazine/2016/november-december/data-membership-dues-arent-the-only-revenue-stream
18. OpenSecrets, "Federal lobbying set new record in 2024 ($4.44 billion; top spenders NAR, U.S. Chamber)," 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/02/federal-lobbying-set-new-record-in-2024/
19. Fortune, "National Association of Realtors agrees to pay $418 million and lower fees to settle 'conspiracy' verdict," March 15, 2024. https://fortune.com/2024/03/15/nar-settles-lawsuits-real-estate-commissions-threat/
20. Informa PLC, "2025 Full-Year Results" (B2B Live Events revenue and 2026 guidance) and "Shareholder FAQs," 2026. https://www.informa.com/investors/
21. RELX PLC, "Annual Report 2025" (RX exhibitions division revenue, event count, exhibitor share) and shareholder information, 2026. https://www.relx.com/investors/shareholder-information
22. GL events, "Investor Relations" and 2025 press releases, 2025–2026. https://www.gl-events.com/en/investors-relation
23. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Apollo Funds to Acquire Emerald and Questex," 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579214/000119312526215652/d22741dex991.htm
24. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Emerald Holding ownership filing," 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579214/000119312526303538/xslF345X06/ownership.xml
25. Blackstone, "Blackstone Acquires Clarion," 2017. https://www.blackstone.com/news/press/blackstone-acquires-clarion/
26. Cvent, "Blackstone Completes Acquisition of Cvent," 2023. https://www.cvent.com/en/press-release/blackstone-completes-acquisition-cvent
27. GES, "GES Completes Sale to Truelink Capital," 2024. https://insights.ges.com/news/ges-completes-sale-to-truelink-capital
28. TA Associates, "Introducing Momentive Software," 2024. https://www.ta.com/news/introducing-momentive-software-provider-of-cloud-based-software-that-powers-mission-driven-associations-and-nonprofit-organizations/
29. Momentive Software, "Momentive Software Accelerates Mission-Driven Innovation with Strategic Acquisition of Personify," 2026. https://momentivesoftware.com/press-releases/personify-acquisition/
30. Freeman, "About Us," 2026. https://www.freeman.com/about-us/
31. Kellen Company / SmithBucklin, "What is an association management company (AMC)?," accessed 2026. https://kellencompany.com/blog/what-is-an-amc/