Make Milestone Moments Matter

‘One lesson from NATO’s 75th Anniversary Summit is that milestones should be designed as experiences, not simply announced as themes.’ Photo courtesy NATO.

In honor of America’s semiquincentennial (say that three times fast!) next month, I’ve been thinking about how associations and events should be marking their own milestones. While major anniversaries can feel like a once-in-a-generation opportunity to celebrate legacy and honor the people who supported the mission, they can be deceptively complex. Done well, they deepen relevance, re-energize an audience, and give people a more meaningful way to connect with the organization’s purpose. Done poorly, they can feel overly nostalgic or disconnected from what stakeholders care about now. The difference often comes down to how intentionally organizers define what the milestone is meant to accomplish and how thoughtfully that purpose shows up in the experience they design. Here’s what event and association leaders who have navigated milestone moments say about getting it right.

“One lesson from NATO’s 75th Anniversary Summit is that milestones should be designed as experiences, not simply announced as themes. In partnership with the National Archives, our production team brought the Alliance’s founding document — the original treaty that established NATO — into the Summit and supported it with archival photography, film, print, and immersive storytelling. Our goal was to help the audience feel a more tangible connection to the significance of the moment.”

Mike Wohlitz, SVP of Design & Delivery, Freeman

“At ASCE, we are celebrating our 175th anniversary in the same year America marks its 250th birthday, which gives us a unique opportunity to connect our milestone to a larger national moment. We are using our reach and impact to support both celebrations while staying true to our culture and values. That includes lighting major civil engineering landmarks across the country in ‘ASCE blue’ and participating in a special CBS documentary celebrating America. It’s a blessing of riches, but it also requires discipline. Like any organization marking a milestone, we have to make thoughtful decisions about how to celebrate the moment, honor our culture, and position the organization for what comes next.”

Peter J. O’Neil, FASAE, CAE, M. ASCE, Chief Executive Officer, American Society of Civil Engineers 

“Younger professionals are less interested in what happened 50 years ago than in what the experience can do for them now, so my advice is to use milestone celebrations to demonstrate relevance. By highlighting how an association or event has helped participants make connections, enhance their careers, and/or move their organization forward, organizers can make the milestone meaningful to the next generation. The key is to keep the focus on the people the show serves, not just the show itself.”

Jess Hammett, Marketing Strategist, mdg

“As we planned for the 25th anniversary of the Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum (ECEF) this year, we solicited ideas from our stakeholders. Upon reviewing them, we realized they primarily involved honoring the past. And while that made sense, for the past 25 years, the single-most consistent message coming from ECEF has been: Don’t let your event rest on its laurels. We decided we had to be true to that message. Our focus shifted to what our clients really wanted from ECEF — and have always received: insights on what’s coming next. Suddenly, the theme of our celebration aligned with our program, our history, and our mission.”

Sam Lippman, Founder, Lippman Connects

“When a milestone is framed as an invitation, not just a celebration, it creates participation and belonging. Too often, milestones become static reviews of the past. But events have the unique ability to turn them into shared experiences. I still remember how my neighborhood marked America’s Bicentennial with games, contests, fireworks and themed food. It’s stayed with me since childhood because we were invited to take part. That participation made the milestone feel personal, memorable, and connected to community.”

Jennifer Jones, VP of Marketing, ASIS International (American Society for Industrial Security)

My own advice: Start earlier than you think you need to. If you wait until the anniversary year to decide what a milestone should mean, it can quickly become a logo, a gala, or a few performative gestures. But when you begin planning a few years in advance, you have time to ask better questions: What does this milestone mean to our audience? What stories have we not told? Who should help shape the celebration? The strongest anniversaries are not created by a small planning committee working in isolation. They are built with input from members, volunteers, past leaders and the next generation of participants, so the final experience feels truly shared.

Kimberly Hardcastle is chief strategist at The Freeman Company.