CAI Report Card
COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONS INSTITUTE (CAI) REPORT CARD
The numbers below are abstracted directly from CAI and FCAR reports provided by each respective organization (see embedded source links).
HOMEOWNER REPRESENTATION
18,183 individual homeowners represented according to the 2022 CAI Annual Report
18,183 / 74,200,000 = 0.00245% representation of community association residents
18,183 / 27,700,000 = 0.00656% representation of community association units
18,183 / 2,500,000 = 0.727% representation of community association homeowner volunteers
5,000??? / 358,000 = 1.396% representation of unique community associations
N.B. CAI community association memberships allow up to 15 homeowner registrations and some CAI chapters offer up to 20 registrations. CAI considers every registered homeowner as a member, regardless of engagement.
N.B. Up to $45 of every homeowner membership directly supports CAI's business-centric lobbying activities.
Do you use the CAI Exchange? It's there to support "community association professionals."
BUSINESS REPRESENTATION
15,211 / 57,500 = 26.45% minimum representation of managers (CAMs)
1,410 / 8,500 = 16.588% representation of management companies
1,298 total attendees
44 (3.4%) homeowner attendees
813 (62.5%) CAM attendees
201 (15.5%) business partner attendees
358,000 Common Interest Communities (CICs)
27,700,000 housing units
74,200,000 residents
2,500,000 elected board members and appointed committee members
$106,400,000,000 homeowner assessments
8,000 to 9,000 management companies
55,000 to 60,000 community association managers (CAMs) (FT on-site and portfolio)
100,000 to 105,000 people directly employed by management companies and associations
N.B. this figure includes CAMS plus other support and finance staff
Number of community association managers (CAMs) per state > Unknown
~20,000 CAMs licensed to work in Florida as of 08/19/23 (DBPR downloads)
1,897 management companies licensed to operate in Florida (about FL licensing)
Additional Statistics
18,183 homeowner members identified in the 2022 CAI Annual Report
6,235 individuals with designations listed in the CAI credentials directory
8,462 individuals with designations listed in the CAMICB directory
15,211 community association managers identified in the 2022 CAI Annual Report
4.355 business partners identified in the 2022 CAI Annual Report
1,410 management companies listed in the CAI online directory
CAI is the 50 year old industry trade organization that's behind much of what ails common interest communities. Condo Connection opposes actions from CAI and FCAR that conflict with homeowner-centric progress for CICs.
ABOUT CAI & FCAR
The Community Associations Institute (CAI) is an industry trade organization that primarily represents the interests of businesses and individual professionals that derive revenue from common interest communities (CICs), thousands of which pay membership dues and/or receive credentials from CAI and/or CAMICB related to practicing law, managing properties, providing insurance, and conducting reserve studies. CAI founded the Foundation for Community Association Research (FCAR). While CAI and FCAR produce some noble and respectable advocacy, documentation, recommendations and research related to certain common interest community concerns, the myriad conflicting interests inherent in their business model and business practices risk undermining these outcomes.
CAI derives the majority of its revenue from the following sources:
1) trade advertising and seminars (example 2022 law seminar registration: $599 to $849)
3) educational catalog courses and webinars ranging from $69 to $699
4) credentialing and required continuing education for management companies, managers, reserve specialists and insurance brokers
CAI's business model disregards some of the most basic concerns of the over 350,000 common interest communities and millions of homeowners and volunteer leaders who paid an estimated $103 billion in annual assessment funds in 2020. These concerns include service delivery failures and ethically suspect practices of businesses and individual professionals who pay CAI for advertising, education and credentialing. This fatally flawed approach is incapable of adequately representing the best interests of common interest communities and their homeowner members because doing so would mean alienating the largest segment of CAI's revenue base. In addition to the foregoing, a lack of transparent communication and feedback systems for CICs and homeowner leaders and the overall paucity of homeowner leader positions on committees, councils and Board positions creates an opaque operating environment for CAI and its state chapters.
Learn more by reading Listening to our Homeowners from the Common Ground magazine November/December 2021 edition. Also read WSCAI Opportunities below.
Did you know? CAI Operates political action committees (PACs). You don't have to guess who is donating!
CAI National Organization by the Numbers (2022)
15 member CAI national Board of Trustees: 1 Trustee is a homeowner leader (6.7%)
12 member CAI national Business Partners Council
12 member CAI national Association Managers Council
7 member CAI national Homeowner Leaders Council (HLC)
The HLC is controlled by the CAI Board and a CAI staff liaison. The HLC's most notable contribution in the past 24 months is the Homeowner Leader Survey of which no results were released save for a half page summary in November 2021.
There is no functional conduit for homeowners and volunteer leaders to connect with the HLC or any other CAI councils or the Board.
18,282 "Homeowner Leaders" = $919,266 annual membership dues
Combination of individual members ($130), two-person memberships ($240) + 15 person memberships ($305)
14,438 Community Managers = $2,151,262 individual memberships ($149 each) + $647,030 company memberships ($445 each)
Combination of individual managers + 1,454 management company members as of July 2022)
4,213 Business Partners, Students & Honorary Members = ~$2,600,000 annual membership dues ($625/business)
IRS Form 990 Tax Return for FY 2018
$13,334,168 TOTAL (excluding investments)
$6,317,558 -- Membership Dues
$3,112,141 -- Educational Courses
$2,287,049 -- Conferences, Seminars and Workshops
$858,125 -- Affiliate Management Fees
$759,295 -- Designation Program Fees
WSCAI (CAI Washington State Chapter) by the Numbers (2022)
9 member WSCAI Board: 2 Board members are homeowner leaders (22%)
None of the committees are chaired by a homeowner leader
1 of the 12 committees lists a homeowner leader as a Board liaison
Zero committees dedicated to CICs and/or to homeowner leaders
[N.B. Due in part to advocacy from Condo Connection, WSCAI started including homeowner leader education as part of the membership cost in 2023].
Everything is for sale: WSCAI traditionally hosts zero free homeowner leader education sessions. As a result of advocacy, WSCAI began offering sessions for homeowner leaders at no cost starting in July 2022 (through December 2022). Despite that offering, WSCAI has a long journey in order to provide meaningful engagement opportunities for CICs and homeowner leaders to network and learn as part of their annual membership.
An "emergency preparedness" session hosted by King County emergency management personnel (government taxpayer resources that normally present information for free) was sold to members in Fall 2021.
A March 28, 2023 "community policing and safety" program is being marketed to members who can attend virtually or in person for $15 and $30, respectively. This program involves publicly funded resources from the King County Sheriff's office and Bellevue Police Dept.