Wild Apricot Webinar Review: Member OnBoarding

Continuing education is something we value strongly at Impact. Wild Apricot’s webinars always prove to be incredibly helpful and informative. Both Jill and JoEllen watched the webinar, “3 New Strategies to Boost Your Member OnBoarding, Engagement, and Retention.”

These two learned that members decide within the first three emails from you whether they will continue reading future emails! This is the primary method of contact between most associations and their members, meaning members NEED to be reading those emails in order to stay up to date and informed.

Maintaining a member’s attention, however, is on you. Wild Apricot offered a plan for your first three emails.

·      Let members know that you know what their problem is

·      Solve that problem

·      And connect them to your Value Trigger Point

A New Member Engagement Study found that onboarding programs increase new member renewal ratees on average by 10%. More so than ever today, people are focused on experiences rather than things. Creating a positive early-on experience for members is crucial!

Avoiding Volunteer Burnout

Every association is lucky to have those few people who are so passionate about the organization that they volunteer for everything! They join the group eager to help in every way they can to keep the association moving in the right direction. You might notice that saying “few people” is not an understatement. An associations can be made up of 50 people or hundreds and it will still have a small amount of people who are willing to volunteer their time.

This can lead to the same handful of people volunteering for the board, committees, or events which can result in volunteer burnout. If you notice that your volunteers are becoming increasingly less enthusiastic, slacking on the job, or more and more negative, you might have a case of volunteer burnout on your hands. Recognizing this burnout is the first step in fixing it. Keep an eye out for when your volunteer’s excitement starts to dwindle.

Once you have noticed that a volunteer is starting to burnout, take a look at their workload and figure out how to divvy it up differently. Pass some responsibilities to those who are looking for more to do. This will allow your volunteer some more free time and a moment to catch their breath.

It is also important to show your appreciation for the volunteers. Feeling valued is often a strong motivator in someone’s work ethic. Showing the group that they are special and emphasizing the difference they are making will raise the morale of the group and keep them chugging along.

Another option to take the load off your volunteers, would be to hire an AMC. AMCs are there to do all of the minuscule things that your volunteers either don’t have time for or simply do not want to do. It allows them to focus on the bigger picture of the association, keeping the mission at the forefront.

Volunteer management can be a challenge, however, it is better to keep a close eye on your volunteers throughout their time with the organization than to run them into the ground.

Introducing our Newest Client, The National Plant Board

Impact Association Management welcomes the National Plant Board      

June 18, 2019, Madison, Wisconsin –Impact  Association Management (Impact) is excited to announce the signing of the National Plant Board (NPB) as their newest client.     

“After an extensive search the NPB chose Impact to manage our organization based on their flexibility, use of technology and ability to connect with our culture.  The NPB is looking forward to working with Impact to tap into their expertise while keeping us organized and able to quickly respond to our constituents.” shares NPB’s President, Ann Gibbs 

“After meeting with the National Plant Board, we hoped that they felt it was as good of a fit as we did and were thrilled to learn they had selected us. We are excited to see how open to change this group is and look forward to helping them become more efficient.”, adds Jodi Fisher, CEO, Impact Association Management 

About the National Plant Board 

The National Plant Board is a non-profit organization made up of the plant pest regulatory agencies of each of the states as well as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and Guam. NPB’s mission is to “provide leadership in developing and implementing science-based regulatory policies and plant health programs, enable safeguarded trade and protect the agricultural and natural resources of the United States.” 

Contact: 

Ann Gibbs 

Ann.gibbs@maine.gov 

www.nationalplantboard.org  

About Impact Association Management  

Impact Association Management was founded in 2006 by Jodi Fisher, and since then they have successfully supported many Associations in growing and increasing profits and memberships. Now expanded into a robust team, Impact consists of Social Media experts, Non-Profit Administrators and Executive Administrative Assistants with impressive backgrounds in Association support, small business operations and international corporations.  Their mission is to provide customized, efficient, and forward-thinking association management services to small and medium sized Associations with a highly skilled, dedicated team of Executive Administrators.  

Contact:  

Impact Association Management 

608.210.3120  

info@ImpactAMC.com  

www.ImpactAMC.com  

All Eyes on your Next Event

When planning an event for your organization, you typically have two goals in mind: create an event that your members will love and get as many people there as possible. No pressure, right? To achieve those goals, it is best to create a promotion plan.

1.     Determine your audience. Understand who would benefit best from the event. This includes both demographics and psychographics. Do you want to include non-members? This first step will determine the direction of your promotion plan.

2.     Develop a message. Your event might have a million benefits for guests but your audience will only care about some of those benefits. Narrow down the message that you want to deliver to your audience and hone in on it. This will be a more effective way to communicate with them.

3.     Find your audience. If you are targeting an older group of people, it might be best to send out direct mail or email. If you are targeting millennials, head to the internet. Going to your audience, will ensure that the message gets in front of them and increases the chance that they will read it.

Determining these few factors can make all the difference in your promotional plan. Make sure to reach your audience more than once to nail in their attendance. Happy event planning!

Adjusting to an AMC

The changeover to an AMC can be a big one. Because of that, we have put in place an on-boarding process for each of our new clients. With this process things tend to run a lot smoother, however, we do notice some clients still have a hard time adjusting to an AMC. Below are a few tips and tricks to an easy transition.

• Overload your AMC with information. Keep in mind that your AMC is becoming a part of your association with only the knowledge you provide and that they can research. They might be new to the industry of your association or even just the way you have done things in the past. Never hesitate to share information about your association. The more your AMC knows, the better off you will be.

• Be available. We often find that if we are not provided information, we spend a majority of our time tracking down the person with that information. If that person is often unavailable, the process drags out. Make sure your AMC has any login information and processes right off the bat in order to avoid delay of communication. If you expect your AMC to provide drafts before publishing work, make sure to get back to them in a timely manner in order to make sure the work officially goes out.

• Let go and let us! AMCs have the experience and skills to do the job. If you are paying for them to do it, make sure to actually let them do it. Once you have seen drafts in the first few months and have evaluated the quality of the work, learn to trust your AMC. This will alleviate you of the duties and free up time that you wanted to gain by hiring an AMC. 

Although change and depending on others can be scary, it is often for the best. If you hired an AMC it was for a reason. You also picked the AMC you picked for a reason. Learn to trust them, communicate with them, and fill them in on all things about your association will only make your organization more successful.