Thirty Years of i4a

This month marks the 30th anniversary of i4a. When I started i4a in September 1996, the Internet for most people was something called AOL. Microsoft was just getting started on the web, and their Internet Explorer browser has since come and gone. I thought our birthday was worth marking.

I started i4a because I recognized that membership organizations (trade associations and professional societies) had an inherent need for what the Internet would become. They had a built-in constituency for the communications it would provide. I understood this from my years as a CPA working with membership organizations.

i4a was a pioneer in providing affordable websites for these organizations. We created one of the first platforms that let clients manage their own content. Then, on March 22, 2001, we began building our membership management platform. At the time, the leading association software ran on an office network. Ours was built to run entirely in a web browser, years before anyone called it "the cloud." Today that is known as association management software.

i4a has never accepted venture capital. So we have never been under pressure to raise rates for some eventual resale or public offering. Our stakeholders are our own employees. And that is reflected in the support we provide to our clients.

We own the hardware that hosts our platform. Not rented space on someone else's servers. That is critical to the security we provide. We never share client data with "marketing" partners. The value we provide is our own software. We don't piggyback on something else, not Microsoft, not Salesforce. Doing that would mean marking up someone else's product.

Today I'm proud to say that i4a provides a complete package: membership management, e-commerce, communications and communities, at a price that is hard to beat. It is the result of 30 years of listening to and learning from our clients, who have been an essential part of everything we do.

Thank you for 30 years.

Donald Rome
Founder and CEO, i4a