06/02/2025

The Northeast and New Hampshire Self Storage Associations Boards Talk About Merging

What This Means and Your Feedback

Overview

After working together for several years and discussing the futures of their associations, the NHSSA board voted to pursue a merger with NeSSA at their January 7, 2025 board meeting. NeSSA’s board members followed suit at their February 20, 2025 meeting. The Executive Committees of board boards will take point as representation for not only their associations, but also for both facility and vendor members within each group. The merged association would serve Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

Working Jointly Produces Positive Results

NeSSA and NHSSA currently collaborate annually on four webinars, and NHSSA has joined NeSSA’s annual Northeast Storage EXPO as a co-host for two years now, with the intent to continue in the future. Both the webinars and the EXPO have become more successful because of this collaboration and have added more benefits and opportunities to learn and network to our members. Working jointly, we’ve expanded our speaker base, built our attendance, offered the webinars at no cost to our members, increased sponsorships, and have been able to grow the EXPO beyond our imaginations thanks to our collaboration with surrounding states.

Impact of Merger on our Members

We expect that a merger of the two associations will have a positive impact on you and your business. As one organization, we will continue to have the same mission, governing documents, a single Board of Directors with those from New Hampshire added, and a united member base. Members will not lose any of their current member benefits and may gain resources and new offerings as the association continues to grow not only in size, but with the interests and preferences of our members.

Events will also look the same post-merger with one large, joint EXPO, quarterly webinars, and regionalized one-day educational and/or social events happening in the fall (currently the Fall Retreat for NeSSA and the Fall Workshop for NHSSA).

For members with facilities in multiple states, this consolidation will result in one dues notice, one website login, one association office phone number and e-mail address, and one expanded membership roster. It is expected that the merged association will become larger than the combined membership of the existing associations resulting in increased revenue and participation at our events.

Our annual dues structure will NOT change at this time. Any changes to the dues, including the annual Five-Star Sponsorship program, must be approved by the board.

Our government relations efforts in the individual states will continue. This, we believe, is one of the most important things the associations do for our industry. The process and cost of pursuing legislation in each state is significantly different. Each group will bring to the merged association the money they have already accrued for the legislative efforts in their state and this money will be preserved for advocacy within that state. As additional funds are needed, the members within that state will support their state’s lobbying efforts. Each state will hire their own lobbyist when necessary and have their own Government Relations Committee.

The Process of Merging

The Association Boards have renewed a relationship with the attorney who handled NeSSA’s original merger. Our work with the attorney so far has been phone calls and getting information and dates in order. The attorney will direct our activities and assist with the filing of state forms in both NH and MA (where NeSSA is registered) and with the IRS. Volunteers will develop our organizational documents, for example our bylaws, and all of our organizational documents will be reviewed by the attorney before they are enacted.

Later this year both boards will vote whether to approve the merger, then the membership will vote. Should everything go smoothly, we anticipate both votes and all of the merger paperwork with appropriate approvals will occur by year-end.

Your Input

We would like your feedback. What are your questions? What are your concerns? Please feel free to reach out to Courtney or anyone from the board directly. Your feedback can remain confidential if you prefer.

Members are also invited to participate in a brief survey to gauge their support here.

Summary

As we go through each step in the merger process, we will keep you informed of our progress. Our next communication will be to summarize the results of the Northeast and New Hampshire surveys and respond to any necessary feedback. You are invited to contact anyone on our Board of Directors or staff at any time during the process.