If you want to create a better partnership with your chapters, find an idea that will energize them, like ANA did. Come up with a program your chapters can get behind and make their own—not something that’s focused on your association, but something that’s focused on the people in your industry or profession.
The biggest skepticism they ran into this time was the budget. Since the #fitnursefriday initiative was only a social media campaign, it didn’t require much of a budget, but this one was different.
They wanted to develop resources for their components and a nationwide reporting tool that allowed nurses (both members and non-members) to record their 5K participation and allowed ANA to aggregate results by state (component). Luckily, as a result of the cross-departmental collaboration already in place, other ANA departments chipped in time and money.
