President Elect Report

President Elect Report July 18, 2012

I attended ALA in Anaheim in June. This was my first ALA conference. I attended at the recommendation of Mike Robinson. He thought the Chapter Leaders Forum would be beneficial to go to and it was!

Since the subject of membership became one of three initiatives to focus on during our strategic planning meeting in May, I’ve been thinking about it. And when Doug Evans, the Executive Director of the Ohio Library Council presented a short session he called, Transforming Ourselves, at the forum, he gave me a lot to think about. Apparently many chapters across the country are having difficulty attracting members, keeping members, and increasing membership. Doug’d be a great speaker to invite to AkLA at some point. Doug presented from the work of Jeff De Cagna, an association innovator, if you want to call him that. Some of his ideas may come across as being a bit radical, like doing away with association dues. I encourage you to look at his blog, http://www.principledinnovation.com/blog/

Doug Evans recognizes that in order to increase membership in our associations we have to be innovative, get away from this tradition of traditions we tend to have. He also says that strategic planning is dead! Radical? Instead he suggested that associations should be more project based instead of planning based. I personally liked this idea, even after all the hard work of our strategic planning session.

Some points he brought up that were especially interesting include-

 Benefit corporations – an example of this is Patagonia clothing company. They’ve chosen to fund causes they think are worthwhile. He mentions that there are a lot of companies looking for causes to fund. Wouldn’t it be interesting to find corporations in Alaska willing to make long term funding commitments to our association?  Overhaul dues structure and consider no dues! No dues structure theoretically could be subsidized by benefit corporations.  Provide mentorship or sponsorships to new members by older members.  Waive membership dues for project participation like website maintenance, lobbying, etc.

I haven’t had a chance to spend much time on his blog but I’m energized by a lot of what Jeff De Cagna says.

Stacey Glaser President Elect