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Q: How does your organization meaningfully engage new members in leadership roles?
We advertise aggressively-through ads and articles placed in the client association's publications, announcements on the Web site, slide presentations, and training workshops that appeal to members' interest in professional development (and that prepare them for leadership roles). Our message is simple: Get involved by serving on committees and task forces that focus on a strategic project.
The benefits flow both ways. Members experience the satisfaction of completing meaningful work for the association; the association cultivates a ladder of leadership to committee chairs, board seats, and officer positions.
Sammi Soutar, CAE President, Able Management Solutions, Inc., Columbus, Ohio; [email protected]
We represent retailers whose businesses are constantly changing. Therefore, meaningful input is the lifeblood of our ability to quickly react to issues affecting our members. As a local trade association, we aggressively seek out new member involvement in the following ways:
* We have a quarterly orientation that brings new members in direct contact with current volunteer leaders and our professional staff in a networking format.
* At each association function (we have a minimum of one function monthly), we place a card on every chair that asks members (new or not) what committees they might be interested in serving on-and we follow up by inviting them to sit in on their chosen committee's next meeting. They can then join the committee if it feels like a match.
* We make frequent use of ad hoc committees in dealing with specific issues and opportunities. We target new members for these groups whenever they have an expertise that would be contributory.
* We make frequent use of e-mail surveys. If we don't get responses from our newer members, our staff will follow up and specifically solicit their input.
* We don't do anything artificial. We genuinely want new members to help us craft correct decisions through their involvement, and they sense our sincerity.
William H. Baxter, CAE President and CEO, Retail Merchants...