International Community Association Managers Day Date in the current year: June 13, 2024

A community association manager, sometimes referred to as simply a community manager, is a person who deals with property owners and homeowners at condominiums, homeowner associations, and housing cooperatives. Community association managers should not be confused with property managers, who deal with rental units, or with online community managers, who build, grow and manage online communities.

Community association management is a relatively new industry that has been growing consistently over the past few decades. It can be described as a combination of project management, financial management, and customer service. Professional community association managers help homeowners deal with things like daily operation, maintenance and repairs, residents’ problems, finances, etc.

In the 1970s, there were about 10,000 community associations in the United States, but only a few community managers. Those who pioneered the profession had little formal training in the field. Most of them used their experience from related industries where they used to work like apartment management, commercial development management, and hospitality and tourism.

As the profession developed, the number of community association managements grew, and formal training and certification programs began to emerge. Present-day community managers are knowledgeable in various fields including community development, facility maintenance, financial management, volunteer management, and urban planning.

There are three main types of community association managers: on-site managers work in the community they manage; portfolio managers oversee several communities; large scale managers specialize in issues facing larger community associations with a significant number of units and a big budget.

International Community Association Managers Day was inaugurated in 2022 by Community Associations Institute (CAI), an international organization that has presence at more than 50 countries worldwide. Its main goals are to build better communities by providing professional community managers and homeowner volunteers with the information, resources and education they need.

This professional holiday is dedicated to over 55,000 community association managers working in the United States and thousands more in other countries of the world. Every year, CAI publishes a list of ways how community association managers, management companies, homeowner leaders, and CAI chapters can observe International Community Managers Day.

The easiest way to observe the holiday is to give a shout-out to community managers on social media with the hashtag #IntlCAMDay and say a word of thanks to your community association manager who manages your condominium or homeowner association, making you life easier.