CDS Board Meeting
July 25, 2010
InterContinental New Orleans
New Orleans, LA
Participants: Mark Brennan, Timothy Collins, Andrew Dane, Mary Emery, Esther Farmer, Stephen Gasteyer, Sharon Gulick, Brent Hales, Gisele Hamm,Lori Landry, Connie Loden, Chris Marko, and Norman Walzer.
Guests: Lori Landry, Linda Sunde, Paul LaChapelle
1. Meeting was called to order by President Mary Emery at 8:03 a.m.
2. Introductions: expectation for the meeting
Tim – by end of the meeting, have 2-3 useful ideas that we can find the time and energy and luck to apply to start to help our organization
Stephen –like to have seen us think about the strategies of bringing in new members and how do we make things like the webinar work if that is a viable strategy for expanding the CDS.
Mark – come up with a game plan to capitalize on.
Esther –create something new together; one way to operationalize
Andrew –n/a
Paul Lachapelle –address financial, community, social networking issues
Linda –have a solid organization so that I can keep coming to conferences
Brent –keep it going
Gisele – Have benchmarked outcomes that we can achieve.
Norm – focus on strategic doing, address networking issues, have an action plan that succeeds within the next 2 years
Lori – successful conference, growth in membership
Mary –bold and committed, we can make a difference in the world!! Leave with ideas to address the state of the Society and that this can be addressed at the Business Meeting and there is a plan that we can make work.
Sharon –understand the financial situation and come up with a better understanding of what we need to do and an action plan so that we have a vision of where we need to go.
Connie –assess how we sit financially and explore new innovations to move forward next year, be dynamic and not stay stagnant and have greater impact.
3. Cynthia Pilcher, Secretary, resigned her position as secretary. This position has to follow the elections and pay more attention to the responsibilities. An option is to appoint someone to complete the term until an election next year. That person would then serve for 2 years because the position is up for election in 2013. The POG must be updated to become “legal” regarding how to fill positions when there is a resignation. Meanwhile, we can appoint someone to fill the position this year and Mary Emery asked to be the mentor as someone appointed to fill the Secretary position for 1 year and then the person would run for the position in 2011.
The motion was to appoint Mary Emery as interim Secretary for one year and ask to be mentored and run for the position in 2011. Motion approved. Deadline to find someone to run is six weeks from now.
4. The POG specifies that nominations are to be made early with the slate approved by the
Board at the Fall meeting. Check the POG for qualifications required.
5. Who will have signature authority as Treasurer; someone must receive the bank statements and this should be different from the person writing the checks. More attention must be paid to financial checks and balances.
6. Approval of Agenda. The agenda was approved.
7. Review of the Minutes:November 7 & 8, 2009, InterContinental New Orleans – A Motion was made to approve the minutes of November 7 & 8, 2009. Motion approved.A motion to approve the minutes of March 16, 2010was approved.
8. Mary charged the Board to make hard decisions about ending the red ink in the Society by:
Limiting spending; Increasing revenue, adding members, and obtaining other revenues. The Society has been eroding the revenue reserves, mainly because conferences have lost money in several instances. Linda provided a chart of the cash flow. Sharon reviewed the budget – checking account shows a large amount due to the conference income and dues renewals.
Total Revenue/Loss since 2001 and the losses starting at $31,266 since 2001; projected revenues to 2010 is $9,000.
In 2002, the decline in membership could be due to NACDP. At this time, NACDP and CDS are talking about collaboration but the financial picture for Extension is not good.. From the membership survey, it appears that CDS members are retiring and we are not replacing them with new members. Norm will send a welcome letter after the conference offer IACD members who are not CDS members to join for slightly more than the price of a journal. To join IACD costs $25. Could CDS offer them a membership rate of $75 ($60 of that going to the Journal)? CDS needs to retain members from conference to conference.
One issue with universities is that they do not pay membership dues with conference fees/. Consider a group deal (Institutional Membership). Set a category for Institutional membership for $??? which covers XX members.Should publicize so that this doesn’t happen to other people who need their membership paid by a university. Could have a range of Institutional members with numbers of people who can vote. Tiered membership based on the size of university.
9. If the conference makes a profit, a portion should be put into a CD and some into the operating budget. The conference revenues should not be used to pay for general operating expenditures. The dues structure and spending must balance without the conference. We can’t continue to lose money because of a conference. People accepted on the program must register and pay by a certain date or be taken off the program. The Cleveland conference had a large loss as did Baltimore and Memphis.
Build a safe place to prepare for loss in future conferences with a system to help avoid these situations in the future.
Preparation for conferences must start 3 years out. Request for local of proposals brought in proposals for 2011 and 2012. We need one for 2013 and a mentor for the local host as to how to build local involvement and raise funds to support the conference.
10. Financial Sustainability Report
Linda provided reports on the financial situation including graphs with the trends 2007-2010. 2009 revenue is substantially lower than any other year but the dues have not all come in yet and it is hard to make direct comparisons with previous years. There are 5 areas to consider:
Baseline Financial Data and Reporting Recommendations;
Programs and Services Recommendations;
Membership Marketing and Products Recommendations;
Making quarterly distributions to the GMF.
Accurate conference budget.
Retaining existing members.
Linda emphasized the need to use what we have coming up to attract members including: CD Practices, Webinars, book series, etc. We must have a marketing plan and not just say:“we should do this, we should market” and then not do it. There are several efforts and plans available and we shouldn’t start over from scratch. Must target markets, next and third generation members, graduates of the CDIs and related groups, social workers, NACDEP, Urban Affairs, and other groups. Linda reviewed the flyers for Social Workers and NACDEP as examples as new ways to hone the message to groups we want to reach.
Another approach to track new segments and retain them is determine what do we offer that helps their practice and what works for them in the profession, what do they take back with them?
Try to reach out to foundations and other sponsoring agencies. Create concept papers to describe ideas such as be a connector agency across groups. USDA would like to see a “go to” agency that will provide technical assistance to communities on a variety of fronts. How do we formulate and put into a proposal that they will see has value for them to fund. Connie’s group to work on the messaging that will resonate with the group, find the language that means something to them.
We must address the financial issues associated with the conference. If it cannot break even or make money, we must be able to pull the plug. We must cut costs and ask whether we can afford to do things. If not, we just should not do them. Mary tried to organize a focus group on conferences but time ran out. One issue is that the Food and Beverage minimum is linked to the hotel room cost. The contract states that we must make at least a minimum F and B regardless of how many attend. That minimum is set when the contract is signed well in advance even of registrations. When registrations fall short, the revenues are not adequate and the CDS must pay the difference. Brent commented that the $99 room cost exists because of the $30,000 F and B amount. If the F and B is less, the room cost would be higher and we may have to pay for meeting space.
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Ask new members at the conference to create a new video and upload it to the Ning site.
Can we generate a list of services that the association provides to support our decisions? Could we do some of those services ourselves and renegotiate the contract until our membership increases.
11. Results of the Membership Survey
Norm reviewed the survey comments: few important items, 59% of people said if they went to the conference every 2 years, their level of participation would likely stay the same. Another group said a biennial conference would actually increase their involvement.
The membership survey stress the importance of involving members and the conference has a session on Sunday intended to involve people in blogging during the conference to get them involved. The survey will be closed in a month with the results share with committees to help them find ways to involve members more.
12. Determine Strategies
Mary organized a session to evaluate strategies that the Board can take to address the membership and financial conditions. The following principles should drive an evaluation of these strategies: add value to field/members; be focused and doable; maximize existing resources (how do we use what we have); build on our strengths – keep these in mind when we decide what we need to do; what to accomplish with 3 month action plan; finding ways to engage the membership, beyond the board, more than increasing their interest, but maximizing their interest; everyone does something; prioritize the list!; asset planning
Strategies:
• Joint IACD/CDS Membership
• Institutional Membership & tiered membership
• Add to long-term savings
• Conference safeguards
• Committee approach vs. networking
• Marketing new members and getting to know them and where would they fit in
• New member engagement and following
• Transparency board/membership
• Focus on cost and revenues - whether it’s the conference or the journal – cut expenses
• Focus on having a really good conference that stay in the black and get board members and
other new members more involved in actively planning the conference and use the conference as the key strategy for engaging with folks and making personal connections or a hook to stay engaged – maybe to break even – big challenge is member retention;
• Set member goal and pursue;
• Raise dues to meet per member costs;
• CDS-policy forums; develop policy com./board action; rural realities;
• Fund-raising streams/leverage;
• Examine the 3 major costs: conference, publications, management services. (looking for 3
recommendations from the board to give to the members at the business meeting).
• Programming.
Conference
•Must be in black or do not proceed;
•More local people involved in planning and build stronger networks;
• set membership goalsand organize a plan to reach them;
•If need $30,000 minimum, require that $15,000 be raised and committed 12 months prior to the conference so that we have a commitment that it can be raised;
•Have a board member in addition to the VP Program appointed to each conference and actively involved (to the local host committee);
•Engage other organizations in conference and planning;
•At conference, make sure individuals are engaged and encouraged to stay engaged;
•Arrange theme tables at meals;
•Expect board members to help promote participants during conference – Use track system more effectively (folks register for track; stay in track;
•Use tracks for after conference engagement;
•Build webinars; articles; that include participants in post conf. webinars; have 1-2 tracks on-line.
•Expect local host committee to share what they learned and generate an end of conference report including recaps of MLWs, etc.
Costs
•How to manage publication costs. Use accrual system and more completely understand what Routledge is paying;
•Factor in the expectations of the Editor for support services;
•Examine the AOM contract to possibly combine the two contracts, find ways to do services ourselves;
•Examine the cost per member of what we are trying to do and whether we can balance the budget with lower membership;
•Ask Lori to provide copies of the AOM contract and the conference contract to the board;
Members/Engagement
•New member interest and involvement inquiry will happen during President’s remarks;
•Possible written survey of participants asking them what the next steps could be;
•Welcoming letter (post-conference) personalized according to interests/background;
•Mid-year “touch-base” letter to new members telling about next conference plans;
•Scavenger hunt in which new participants meet Board members, sign up for committee, etc;
•Delivering more services using social media;
•Focus on more tangible services that can be used directly in daily development tasks;
•Re-engage the “committees” (maybe reinvent i.e. task forces);
•Host deliberate informal networking opportunities making an effort to include “newbies”; ask to dinner with group, etc.
Policy Forums & Programming
•Create webinars, info. Xchange, and personal interactions;
• CDS members can attend other meetings on an exchange basis and develop a feedback loop inthe Vanguard;
•Make CDS an educator’s annual conference, policy webinars and ways to stimulate interaction;
•Set up a program around policy conversations by bringing in a person by teleconference with a brief 5-10 statement on a policy issue (housing, poverty) and prepared with a set of questions. Product would be a white paper on the web summarizing best practices
•Archive past issues of the Vanguard and make available for anyone on the website.
•Send reminder on the listserv that the Vanguard is available on the website.
•Tim Collins will edit the Vanguard and Steven Gasteyer will co-edit.
Within a month, each group comes back of ideas as to what is going to happen. (A list of the actions decided upon from the wall charts is provided as an appendix.)
13. Awards and Recognition Report (Gisele Hamm)
There were 18 submissions this year and every category was covered. The process went well. Next year, have submissions go to a separate gmail address to make the management process easier.
14. Communication Committee (Anne Silvis)
Submissions to journal are coming along well. Book series is getting interest with a few good proposals already and a contract out for the first book. Talked about Vanguard and the website (continues to be developed). Rhonda submitted a review of the journal and attempts to have it rank higher in citation lists. The journal does not rank high now and we need to promote people citing their articles etc.
15. Finance Committee (Linda Sunde)
The endowment funds are doing well in spite of the recession. We are$1,300 away from recuperating the loss from 2008. The GMF management fees are well-worth the costs. We need to work on the way the audit is reported with more information included on explanations of the accounts and trends. Details on the distribution in funds are in the Finance committee report: There will be $1,500 given in scholarships for the Boise Conference. A personcan receive a scholarship only one time.
16. International Committee (Andrew Dane)
The M and M committee is trying to pull something together for a joint declaration. The committee has been fairly active with in conference calls and Randy has had good content for the committee. Progress has been made as to who CDS is and how to relate to International issues. CDS can support other organizations around the world who wouldn’t be in the United States and this has helped to hold the committee meetings. Moving forward with the committee, Esther will Co-Chair the committee with Andrew Dane. The committee is revising the proposal on some sort of communicative practice around the world – nice tangible project. A Motion passed to contribute $100 to the IACD/CDS member reception on Saturday, July 24.
17. Membership and Marketing Committee (Chris Marko)
Report submitted. Membership survey was successful and is ongoing for at least another month to gather information from conference members and new members since conference. Once Karen’s child is born, the CDS board would like to send her a card. Capacity of the M&M committee has changed due to Karen and Wanda (no longer involved), Chris will be off the board (term expires) and asks someone taking on the Chair position to relieve this responsibility from Karen. Chris is willing to help as Co-Chair. Still need more people to join the committee. Mark Brennan is willing to help. Need to find ways to connect with the membership.