Increase Non-dues Revenue with Interactive and Competency Based elearning
Updated June 5, 2026
Increasing non-dues revenue is one of the primary challenges that member-based organizations face today. While selling online education courses is a valuable revenue source, there are ever-increasing opportunities to build beyond a standard course catalog.
This article discusses strategies that organizations can adopt to expand their offerings and increase non-dues revenue.
Key Takeaways
Interactive eLearning helps member-based organizations grow non-dues revenue by making online education more flexible, practical, and engaging.
- Interactive courses add value fast: Organizations can upgrade continuing education with quizzes, scenarios, and applied learning without fully rebuilding programs.
- Competency-based education personalizes learning: Members progress based on skill and knowledge levels (not just time spent in a course).
- Interactive videos improve retention: Learners stay engaged by applying concepts directly inside the video experience.
- Nano courses make credits easier to earn: Short, focused lessons help members learn quickly and complete credits on their own schedule.
- Course catalogs grow faster: Short videos and nano courses are easier to create, update, and align with current industry needs.
Interactive Courses: Continuing Education’s Major Facelift with Minimal Change
The recent boom in technological advancements and online education delivery has made it possible to create and offer engaging, interactive courses to members.
To see these advancements in online education delivery, view our interactive demo page here.
Online continuing education programs for organizations can be diverse, filled with members from all sorts of educational backgrounds, experience levels, and aptitudes. Because of this, many organizations have added competency-based online programs that prioritize practical skills, prior knowledge, and individual learning abilities.
What is Competency-Based Education?
Competency-based education provides exactly what it suggests: education progress tracked by competencies. This means that, rather than measuring member progress by time spent in a course, the competency-based model measures student aptitude.
Payne (2025) at the American College of Education explains that in this setup, members progress only when they demonstrate that they truly understand and have mastered the current material. This means that they can spend more or less time on individual topics, depending on their needs!
Benefits of Competency-Based Learning for Organizations
- Minimal time is wasted on subjects that have already been mastered or are unnecessary for the learner.
- Learning is more personalized, focused, and purposeful.
- Learners progress at their own pace and are no longer confined to standardized time markers.
- Skill-based learning allows for quicker progress for more advanced learners.
- More non-dues revenue is generated due to higher enrollment rates caused by tailored programs.
When competency-based education is used in online programs, both organizations and their members benefit.
- Specified learning allows members to earn certifications or credentials in specific fields.
- Focused learning enables quicker mastery of more current and applicable material.
- Organizations earn more non-dues revenue due to their increasingly varied and program-specific catalogs.
- Competencies in most professions are readily defined, which makes course development easier.
- Competency-specific modules double as refreshment courses and reminders for experienced practitioners.
- Knowledge reinforcement tests are powerful tools for measuring program aptitude levels.
Next Steps for Competency-Based Online Programs
As organizations continue to define and build competency maps, competency-based online programs will steadily improve. However, online programs must ensure that they meet the following requirements:
- Learners must be able to absorb and apply their learning.
- Learning objectives must be identifiable and profession-specific.
- Learning must be engaging and immersive for modern learners.
- Competency-based programs must accurately measure prior learning and/or skills.
- Courses must be current, relevant, and flexible.
This is where interactive online videos come in.
Interactive Online Video Learning
Despite being one of the fastest-growing forms of continuing education today, interactive online learning is still relatively new, which means that it’s still in the process of discovery. With online videos taking up about 1/3 of all internet activity, it’s important to strive for the most effective ways to combine them with online education. Optimal online video learning results are achieved when lessons are engaging, responsive, and (most importantly!) interactive.
According to Soydaş and Akyazi (2021), a high level of interaction makes it possible to hold attention, boost motivation, achieve high levels of satisfaction, and provide significant increases in learning performance.
Interactive online training often begins with a demonstration, which transitions into application: the learner is tasked with implementing what they have absorbed into practical scenarios in order to demonstrate that they possess an adequate understanding of the lesson. Even better? All of the above occurs within the video itself!
Curious to see what an interactive video looks like? Click here.
Benefits of Interactive Online Video Learning
One of the best ways to improve the educational experience of online videos is to turn them from a passive endeavor into an active one. How? Through gamified engagement, of course!
According to the University of Groningen (2025), interactive videos can capture and hold learners’ attention more effectively than traditional text-based materials. The combination of visual and auditory elements can make learning more dynamic and powerful.
Interactive online learning allows members to:
- Learn by practicing and recollecting actual experiences.
- Apply their learning to real-world scenarios and situations.
- Stay engaged, attentive, and retentive.
- Gauge their comprehension levels on the go.
- Experience multiple delivery methods, including gamified, scenario- and/or story-based videos.
- Apply their prior learning to interactive videos, or else advance through previously completed sections.
And, looking at how the structure of online courses has changed over time, the results are clear. Online programs have evolved from long, somewhat tedious videos into short, focused, and visually-enhanced modular segments. These micro-lessons are often called nano courses or nano credits. Let’s take a look!
Nano Courses and Credits
By adding interactive online videos to these nano courses, organization members can earn continuing education credits more quickly and practice applying practical skills. Furthermore, the amount of time spent on each course is reduced, and the flexibility of study increases considerably. After all, it’s a lot easier to fit a 30-minute session into your day than it is a 2-hour (or even 2-day) one!
Overall Benefits
- Continuing education typically helps generate more non-dues revenue due to ever-updating fields.
- Realistic and challenging scenarios make learning engaging and memorable.
- The material from nano courses is often learned quickly and is immediately applicable.
- Nano courses are effective for self-assessment, training, and/or mastery of a topic.
- Nano courses are fast and easy to create, allowing organization members to quickly earn credits in newly developed areas.
- Videos are easy to create and update, allowing for the most up-to-date and relevant information.
- Situational-based learning and exercises help teach how to draft documents, answer real-life questions, and act in many other scenarios.
As we have outlined, there are many opportunities for organizations to expand their course libraries, improve their education programs, and increase non-dues revenue.
Adding interactive online training courses and videos can help organizations drastically increase their virtual reach. In addition, competency-based learning can add the educational rigor and focus that may be needed in order to advance online programs. Online continuing education is allowing members and potential members to advance their skills in the fields they choose–when they want, where they want, and in the order they want.
References
Payne, L. (2025, July 8). Pros and cons of competency-based learning | ACE blog. American College of Education. https://ace.edu/blog/competency-based-learning-pros-and-cons/
Soydas, H., & Akyazi, E. (2021). Interaction increasing factors: Research on e-learning content design. International E-Journal of Educational Studies. https://doi.org/10.31458/iejes.786457
University of Groningen. (2025, February 6). Why use video in education? Edusupport.rug.nl. https://edusupport.rug.nl/3211034661/Instructor/Using+video+for+teaching+and+learning/Designing+and+using+video+in+education/Why+use+video+in+education%3F
