I am an ARRL member. Incidentally, I don't get any vote about Directors - 'Taxation without representation?'
But I am a member because of what they do for amateur radio. Far more than any other national society, they support IARU and send people to ITU Study Groups and Working Parties as part of the US delegation. Now that is important - there are countries whose delegates do not believe in amateur radio, calling it a 'Rich white man's hobby'. The African delegate who said that to me was seen negotiating with a 'professional lady' in the red light area of Geneva - which you must pass through as you walk down to the pub "The Grand Duke". Plus his technical knowledge was, at best, negligible - one can understand his only reason for coming to Geneva - and it isn't Duty Free in the airport which is probably the most expensive in the world ....Regrettably, there are a number of developing countries whose delegates to ITU Study Groups have little or no engineering knowledge, but are there because of their countries' politics. There are also people from Administrations in developed Western European countries at these meetings who have minimal technical knowledge, but sufficient seniority for a 'jolly', too! Lack of technical knowledge is not entirely confined to the developing world - at World Radio Conferences, the Head of the US Delegation is usually someone from the State Department of Ambassador Rank, not an engineer from NTIA...
But without IARU and ARRL, (the two are inextricably intertwined) amateur radio internationally would be far worse off. With today's returns on investment, fewer and fewer societies are offering life memberships. RSGB stopped back in the 1990s because we could see us losing money on them overall.....and ARRL probably should do the same.
Yes, I have seen all this, having spent 17 years going to ITU for IARU and as a consultant on Amateur Radio to the UK Administration...