The Economic Club of Washington, D.C.

The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. is a nonprofit peer-group organisation formed in 1986 and reporting nearly 1,000 members. It runs a Signature Events programme of addresses and on-stage interviews with business leaders, policymakers and public figures, chaired for many years by David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group, alongside smaller member gatherings through the year. Annual dues cover attendance at the regularly scheduled Signature Events, which is a different pricing model from the Economic Club of New York, where dues and event access are priced separately; members pay a fee to bring guests. Admission is by nomination: a current member nominates the candidate and a second member, who must not work at the same organisation, seconds the nomination. The Membership Committee weighs business and professional achievement, government and diplomatic service, civic leadership and field of expertise, and deliberately balances the membership across sectors. No more than two members from the same company may belong. The Club also runs scholarship, fellowship and internship programmes for students in the region.

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The core of membership is the Signature Events series, at which invited speakers are interviewed on stage; annual dues cover attendance. Members may bring a limited number of guests for a fee, and take part in smaller group gatherings through the year. An Executive Fellows Program runs separately for individuals from annual sponsor organisations. Education programmes, including the David M. Rubenstein Scholarship Program, sit alongside the membership.

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Members include heads of regional and national corporations, entrepreneurs, investment professionals, government-affairs experts, lawyers, accountants and other business leaders from the Washington region. The Club states that no industry, profession or field of expertise is over-represented, and caps membership at two people from any one company.

The distinguishing features are the pricing model and the anti-concentration rules. Dues cover the Signature Events rather than being a base fee on top of which events are charged, which makes the Club simpler to budget for than its New York counterpart, though the dues figure itself is not published. The rule that no more than two members may come from the same company, together with the requirement that nominator and seconder work at different organisations and the stated aim that no industry be over-represented, is a deliberate structural check on any one firm or sector dominating. In practice the Club's identity is bound up with its long-serving chairman and the calibre of speaker he attracts, which is a dependency worth noting. Neither dues nor acceptance rates are disclosed.

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