From Zero to Hero: 4 Chapter Transformation Stories

Story 1: From Empty Seats to Sold Out Events

After only two days on the job, Jill Murphy, Membership & Post Operations Senior Manager at the Society of American Military Engineers, was told about a tiny dying chapter she had to close. Her immediate reaction: not on my watch!

Even though the chapter held its luncheon meetings on base, they couldn’t get enough people to attend them. Jill and a few chapter leaders came up with some ideas that ended up increasing member attendance and engagement:

• Four motivated members committed to calling people and personally inviting them to meetings. They also asked people to invite their co-workers to come along to lunch with them.
• The chapter organized happy hours for young members on the same day as the luncheon meeting.
• They switched to off-base meeting locations, for example, member company offices, starting with those who were corporate partners. All office staff were invited to attend.
• And, the best idea of all… The chapter indulged in some out-of-the-box thinking and asked themselves, “What would engineers enjoy learning about? Can we combine education and social somehow?”

Their genius idea… infrastructure tours. Remember, the members are engineers. They love going behind the scenes and hearing about technical details, for example:

• After a behind-the-scenes tour of a wastewater facility at Great Wolf Lodge, members were encouraged to stay overnight and enjoy the park with their families.
• A presentation on transportation infrastructure issues was followed by go kart racing.
• They also enjoyed behind-the-scene tours at breweries, wineries, and Busch Gardens, as well as one with an archaeologist for the National Park Service.

Now that the chapter goes to cool places, their events are selling out. Their innovative approach won them the top chapter award in the Society’s small chapter category. Since then, the chapter’s membership has grown so much they’re now in the medium chapter category and won that award too.

Story 2: From Struggling, Disengaged Leaders to a Full Leadership Roster

Superheroes are not so super when they’re responsible for a chapter’s doom, just ask Leisl Moriarty, CMP, Director of Affiliate Relations at the American School Counselors Association (ASCA). One of her chapter presidents was a so-called superhero plummeting to a crash landing. Some of the red flags were:

• Registering for the annual meeting but not showing up.
• Always making excuses.
• Not communicating or, when she did, being the last to respond.

Once she got the chapter president on the phone, Leisl could tell she was overwhelmed and drowning. The chapter was paying the price for her incompetence. Leadership positions went unfilled and the remaining board directors, fed up with her lack of communication, were disengaged from their work.

The end of the president’s term was in sight, but Leisl couldn’t let this happen again. She helped the chapter find better leadership candidates for the short-term and establish a leadership succession plan for the long-term.

ASCA had just completed a community project in the area so she knew of a few possible leadership candidates. She helped them get nominated and into leadership roles.

But her assistance didn’t stop there. At ASCA’s annual meeting, she worked on chapter strategy with the new leaders. Throughout their term, she provided support and advice, for example, branding and messaging audits. They scheduled a bi-weekly check-in, but now touch base as needed.

The chapter had a complete turnaround. All board and committee roles are filled—an accomplishment that led to a few of the chapter leaders doing a talk at the annual meeting about leadership succession. The chapter uses a database, regularly reports their financials, hosts a successful conference, and advocates effectively at the state level. Since the chapter trusts ASCA and is willing to collaborate, they’ve become a pilot for new programs.

The moral of the story: even when a chapter’s situation looks dire, if you can find a few true heroes, you too can spark a chapter transformation. In our next post, we’ll share two more stories about chapter turnarounds.

Story 3: From Exhausted Despair to Satisfying Growth

“I have nothing left to give.”

No one wants to hear that from a volunteer but that’s what Nina Holman, Chapter Administrator at the Project Management Institute (PMI), was told by one of her chapter presidents.

But it was the truth, the chapter was dying. Their financial situation was dire—in one year they lost nearly half their members. They also lost two significant board members. The chapter didn’t have a succession plan, probably because they didn’t have a committee structure to support operations.

Nina met with the chapter board and they made the decision to revitalize with PMI’s help. PMI provided templated communications that the chapter sent to members. The gist of these messages was: without you, we have no community; we need you to stand up and contribute.

The chapter board personally invited members to volunteer.. Their success with this approach corresponds with the findings of ASAE’s Decision to Volunteer study: personal invitations are the most effective volunteer recruiting method.

Meanwhile, PMI introduced new programs to help all their chapters increase membership and improve communications. Their Chapter Guest Pass program gives new PMI members who haven’t yet joined their local chapter a chance to try out chapter membership for free.

They also developed a member communication toolkit to help chapters understand PMI’s communication schedule, and when they could best fill in the gaps with their own communications.

The tale of the dying chapter has a happy ending. The chapter is meeting PMI’s core service requirements. But, even better, the number of members has grown immensely since those bad old days, but this time with a 79% retention rate and an 85% member satisfaction rate.

Story 4: From Begrudging Compliance to Proactive Improvement

No one wants to be a compliance officer, but that’s what many CRPs feel like, especially when it’s time for chapters to submit annual reports. Leslie Whittet, Vice President, Chapter Operations at the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), figured out a way to empower chapters to step up their game without having to badger them into it.

Instead of submitting a report, ACG chapters do a self-assessment as part of the annual Chapter of the Year awards program. The self-assessment has four categories:

• Leadership and governance
• Programs and marketing
• Membership
• Financial operations

Each category is assigned to a different chapter board member. They assess their chapter’s performance (practices/policies) on each item in the category checklist against ACG best practices. For example, in the financial operations category, they rate their chapter on whistleblower, conflict of interest, and separation of duties policies and practices.

These self-assessments tap into the chapter leaders’ competitive nature. They want to win in their category (small, medium, large) so they make sure their chapter adheres to best practices. At the annual conference, ACG highlights the best practices and programs from award-winning chapters.

The impact of self-assessments goes beyond awards. ACG has seen increased engagement and two-way dialogue with its chapters. Instead of having to remind chapters about compliance issues, the chapters are now calling ACG to find out how they can improve their practices. The result is a total shift in chapter mindset and conversations.

Read more about ACG’s chapter self-assessments and other transformative chapter practices in our 2019 Chapter Benchmarking Study with Mariner Management, which includes industry data to help you benchmark your chapter programs against others and many examples of chapter success stories.