By Veronica Sullivan, Account Executive
For many associations, chapters are the lifeblood of existence. Individuals find the most value of their membership in the local connection with other members. The Society for Information Management (SIM) recognizes that its 38 chapters are the primary reason why the organization is thriving and continues to grow each year. The networking, knowledge-sharing and camaraderie that exists among SIM members at the chapter level is powerful.
When SIM became a client partner of Association Headquarters (AH) in January 2012, the client team at AH immediately identified numerous areas where improved chapter support was crucial. The team held individual calls with each chapter president to discover their chapter’s greatest pain points, add them to the running list of needed improvements, create a plan to tackle them and put the plan into action.
Chapter Web Support
At the time of transition, SIM chapters were in desperate need of website support. Simply put, SIM’s association management software was set up improperly and was not being used to its fullest potential. Many chapters sought alternative solutions, which, of course, cost the chapter’s money and, more importantly, volunteer time and labor.
Upon learning the mechanics of the new database software and analyzing the set-up, the client team performed an overhaul and, over time, has been able to get most chapters to migrate back into the national system (from only 25 percent of chapters previously using the system to today’s 80 percent). The team is constantly finding ways to improve the website functionality and provide training to chapter leaders to ensure they are getting the most out of the system.
Chapter Membership Support
SIM’s complex membership structure did not make supporting members an easy endeavor to begin with. The mass exodus out of SIM’s software further complicated the management, billing and collection process of membership dues. The sheer number of different databases used by all the chapters resulted in bad data and impossible reconciliations. The efforts of the client team to smoothly transition the chapters back into the national system and provide excellent support thereafter (to members and chapter leaders alike) have resulted in better data and better reporting, on top of quicker and more accurate reconciliations. In the coming months, chapters will also have quick access to personal custom membership reports, another new offering initiated and supported by the client team. This saves staff time and gives chapters access to real-time data, 24/7.
In addition to billing and dues processing support, the client team has provided the chapters with other valuable services since taking over in 2012. Chapters have been offered the capability of creating custom membership applications to meet each ones unique needs. The client team also handles the collection, distribution and maintenance of all membership applications (an average of 15 per day). The membership chairs from each chapter are also invited to a monthly idea- and informationsharing call, which has proven helpful to the chapters as evidenced by the monthly attendance.
Chapter Marketing and Communications Support
SIM relies on its local chapters to recruit and retain members. Since the growth of the association is in the hands of the chapter leaders, they must be armed with the necessary tools and knowledge in order to be successful.
“What’s In It For Me?” Calls
Every month, the marketing chair from each chapter is invited to join the “What’s In It For Me?” call, led by SIM’s volunteer marketing director and the client team’s marketing manager. Materials are prepared in advance and every month a new marketing topic is discussed. This gives the marketing chairs not only a chance to share ideas among each other, but also to take new ideas back to their chapter and implement them.
Marketing Toolkit
The client marketing team, along with some SIM volunteers, created a marketing toolkit for chapter leaders containing templates, social media ideas, media tips and other resources. This new offering was received extremely well.
Chapter Leader Newsletter
The SIM Headquarters team created Chapter Chatter, a targeted monthly newsletter for SIM’s 400+ chapter leaders, which includes chapter-specific news, best practices, marketing tips, meeting/event information, membership reminders and much more. The chapter leaders have benefitted greatly from this new offering and look to it for much of their news from the national organization.
Communications Schedule
With so many different communication channels, SIM realized the need for a comprehensive communications schedule. Every SIM chapter has its own communications, so to avoid members being bombarded with emails from the national organization, along with their local chapter, the client team creates a monthly schedule and shares it with the chapters so they can plan communications accordingly.
IRS Support
The SIM client team collectively has many years of experience handling relationships between non-profits and the IRS. This is another invaluable resource to chapter leaders who often step into volunteer roles with limited knowledge of what is required to maintain a chapter’s exempt status. In addition to existing chapters, the client team handles all IRS filing and correspondence for new SIM chapters. If the chapters should need support with an issue or have general questions, the client team is always available to step in and help achieve resolution and/or answers.
Web and Membership Support Testimonial
“As a new membership co-chair for the Boston chapter, I was pretty frustrated with our old stand-alone back-end system — at the time we were looking to metrics to help guide important chapter decisions and we were unable to coax meaningful and reliable data from the old system. In addition, the overhead of dues processing and the cost of maintaining the old system were limiting our ability to focus on things that could make the chapter stronger.
Working with SIM Headquarters to migrate us from our old system to [the new system] (hosted by Headquarters) was a great relief. They helped us create the templates we would need to export all our data from the old system into [the new system], and helped us make informed decisions while we were customizing the front end to be more member focused.
We ended up saving the chapter over $5,000 a year in credit card fees and the external cost of the old management system. At the same time, we freed up several hours a week for our chapter administration staff, allowing them to focus on growing chapter engagement.
In addition, we now get monthly reports with reliable membership metrics sent automatically, and are looking forward to adding engagement numbers as we collect it to give us a much clearer picture of what’s going on with the members of the chapter.”
