Conference Location Must Haves

The task of planning your association’s conference can be daunting. The overwhelming amount of details and decisions can often be more than a board can handle. When it comes to picking your conference location, you have two options: call everyone’s favorite AMC, Impact to help you out :) OR follow these guidelines! 

1. Location. Location is one of the crucial factors that determines the level of attendance from association members. Keeping the location somewhere easily accessible and relatively central for chapters will up the number of attendees. If the place that happens to be both centrally located and easily accessible, is also a larger tourist location, you are in luck! 

1. Budget. Set a budget before you begin your process and stick to it. Doing this early allows you to have an understanding on how much you are going to allocate to the venue, food, and other services. 

1. Services. When looking for the facilities you would like to hold your conference in, look for a main meeting room, smaller rooms for breakout sessions, and the proper equipment.  

1. Space. Take a look at last year’s numbers and estimate how many attendees you are planning on for the current year. On your site visit, ask how many people can fit in meeting rooms and ensure that the space will be comfortable for guests. 

1. Site Visits. Impact has done a plethora of site visits and there are a few major things to look out for. Cleanliness, friendliness, catering options, and parking are all factors to consider. 

If you keep these things in mind, the search for your next conference space will be a breeze. 

Venue hunting in Salt Lake City.

Venue search in Memphis, TN.

Introducing The International Personnel Assessment Council

January 30, 2019, Madison, Wisconsin –Impact Services (Impact) is pleased and proud to announce the signing of The International Personnel Assessment Council (IPAC) as their newest client.     

“IPAC aspires to be the first stop for assessment professionals seeking a network of expertise and applied resources. Our partnership with Impact Services will help us live our core values of Community, Learning, and Practice while we work to foster member growth and increase our membership value and engagement by maximizing operational efficiencies.”  shares IPAC’s Past President, Matisha Montgomery    

“Impact is rapidly growing and we are excited about each individual new client. We are eager to share and support IPAC’s mission to serve personnel assessment practitioners. The organization provides practical and useful tools for their industry. Our team is ready to support this unique group and help them reach their goals”, adds Jodi Fisher, CEO, Impact Services  

 About International Personnel Assessment Council 

The International Personnel Assessment Council is a nonprofit organization made up of HR directors and managers, specialists in staffing, recruiting, and organizational performance management, and more. These professionals have interest and expertise in development and effective use of HR selection and assessment methods. IPAC’s mission states, “To serve personnel assessment practitioners and scientists by facilitating interaction with a community  of  peers  and  experts  and  delivering  the  practical  tools  they  need  to  achieve  professional success.”  

Contact:   

Marty Alber, IPAC President  

402.290.8662 

President@ipacweb.org 

https://www.ipacweb.org/ 

About Impact Services   

Impact Services 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 Services  

608.210.3120  

info@impactvs.com  

www.impactvs.com  

Client Spotlight: Ohio Society of Health-System Pharmacists

Happy Tuesday! We are starting off the week by sharing a little on another one of our clients. The Ohio Society of Health-System Pharmacists or OSHP, is a client we have the joy of supporting. OSHP is an organization made up of pharmacists, students, technicians, and associates with an interest in health-system pharmacy practice. The mission of OSHP is, “To optimize patient health by advocating for the advancement of pharmacy practice to promote comprehensive, quality care across the health-care continuum.”   

OSHP offers members a large set of benefits. Membership comes with networking opportunities, newsletters, education programs, workshops, legislation tracking, testimony, and updates, social events, and more! This organization understands the needs of their members and makes sure to deliver. 

Impact supports OSHP through their two Executive Administrators, Heather Kramer and Ashley Cortino. This successful duo provides OSHP with email management, financial support, website updates, event management, and member communication. The two have a system that has helped OSHP with their success and have built a strong partnership with the organization. 

Click to learn more about OSHP!

What Makes Impact, Impact

2019 marks Impact’s 13th year of business. It has been an exciting ride full of changes and growth. This year, we decided it was important to define what is unique about Impact. Talking over everything that is unique to Impact, our team narrowed it down to 3 defining factors.

1.  We love what we do, and it shows. Our team is passionate about supporting Associations and becoming partners in order to surpass goals and achieve milestones. As partners, we find great value in developing relationships with our Clients. We are real people with different personalities, skill-sets and strengths. We celebrate this diversity and believe in having FUN while providing top level professional services to our Clients. 

2. We specialize in small-medium sized Associations. We understand the unique challenges and benefits that align with these Organizations. While each Client is unique, we believe in sharing the strategies and successes we’ve experienced in the past rather than reinventing the wheel. Regardless of how long our Clients have been established or what phase they are in as an Organization, we believe they deserve the best customer service, support and resources.
   

3. We believe in transparency. We hold ourselves to extremely high standards when it comes to ethical business practice. From day one we are working hard to establish trust with our Clients. We often pick up the pieces from previous broken partnerships and this has given us the knowledge of how to do things right, right from the start. From our contracts to our invoices and everything in between, we respect our Clients too much to keep anything in the dark. 

Although logos, employees, and clients may have changed over the last 13 years, these 3 unique selling points never will. Happy 13 years of Impact!

Member Retention: Your Membership Webinar Review

Impact’s team member, Heather, recently watched a webinar on Member Retention by YourMembership. Heather reported back to the team with many creative ideas and suggestions that she learned from this webinar.  

The video mentioned that a member is going to decide whether they will renew in the first 3 months. This proves how crucial communication is when welcoming a member.  It is important to show the new member their importance to the association and inform them of all benefits and resources the membership includes. This increased communication, however, cannot stop after the initial welcome. It is crucial to maintain a consistent line of communication between the board and members. The members need to be reminded of why they chose to become a member in the first place. This can be as simple as sharing industry related news or updating them on changes within the board.  

At the end of the day, however, you are still going to lose some members. One option that YourMembership suggested is conducting an exit survey. This should include something positive such as, “What did you gain from being a member?” Questions like this can remind the member of the perks before exiting and could influence their decision. The exit survey should also include questions that give further insight into why members are leaving. Questions can include “Why do you not want to renew?”, “What would have made you want to renew?”, or “When did you decide not to renew?” Information like this can help the board understand what steps to take next.  

Next steps could include adding more benefits, implementing better communication, or recognizing when members make their decision. It is a lot easier to retain a member than to recruit a new one. Putting time an energy into your current members can show a large payoff.

https://www.yourmembership.com/resource-library/webinars/