Chapter President's Call
March Calls
Update from Veta;
Invited Board of Directors to come to DC office.
Moving from SP 1.0 to SP 2.0 in October 2017.
Metrics to define success has 4 pillars:
#1
- Transforming (?) ACC products and services
- Service experience – satisfaction ratings
- Do they like conference? Will recommend to others?
- Webcastsatisfaction ratings – are webcasts on point, serving needs of members?
- Legal resources – satisfaction with array of resources, what do you think of resources? #1 reason members join ACC
#2bolster ACC efforts collaboration, engagement between members, chapters are important element
Looking at participation level overall. What are seeing online, at chapter program level, what’s anticipation of chief legal officers? Chief legal officers feel ACC may not offer as much for them, yet offers benefits for others. ACC will continue to offer and measure CLO engagement.
#3 network of choice for counsel worldwide no matter location – parity of experience – global growth numbers and percentages. Will split by region. Indicated by growth and retention. Will examine a chapter desert, a location where there’s not a local chapter that will serve the member. An online or other service that will meetmembers in these areas. Looking for more parity of experience.
#4 Key stakeholders, making sure general counsel has credibility and respect and is sought out by board of directors. Value that a general counsel has. Must be a direct report to the CEO. Has a standing seat in the boardroom. Will be measured by surveys.
Compensation is a measure of return in the corporation. CLO should be among top 5% of pay in the organization
Establish CLO certification program.
David Chu – update on Law Firm Alumni program launched on January 22. Give them gift of free 6-month membership to ACC. Communicated as a gift from the firm (no cost to the firm).
Counsel University, $200 university credit
Reach out to sponsoring law firms to share this program to help gain members.
ACC Research update by Robin Myers
CLO survey - 1275 responses
Report published in January.
Unique benchmarks in this year’s survey
Internal spend a % of revenue
Staffing #s – paralegal, contract lawyers, etc.
Company annual revenue breakout
Story about cyber security
Chapter presidents should ask Robin Myers how to use data in events, and ways to promote membership.
ACC foundation cyber security report will be released soon.
Reach out to Robin with questions.
CLO survey results will be available soon.
87,000 in-house counsel survey was released. 14% of 500 that completed survey were prospects. Can use this info as a hook to have them join.
Will read will IP address, will figure out currency in your location, will offer survey to you in the currency where you live and work. Survey team will be able to convert currency back and forth.
Ariel – update on Global Membership Month is in March. We have 28 chapters with 34 events going on in March. Include other in-house counsel from your community. Don’t feel restricted that can only have event in March.
If chapter signs up they’ll get a box of goodies, a discount code (unique for each chapter) for any members that join within 10 days of chapter event. It’s $50 off membership.
This quarter’s topic is membership.
MEMBERSHIP: best practices, challenges, what are you working on, etc.?
Some chapters are making phone calls to lapsed members.
Some chapters are holding events.
Veta: Held discussions with Wisconsin chapter. Working with MarquetteUniversity – help to reach out to alumni. Idea came out of listening to interactions at the law school level. Maybe law school could help the chapter.
Events, social and otherwise. How do you address non-members? Do you charge non-members for attendance? Do you allow them to attend events indefinitely as a non-member?
Luke, SC – thinking it may be best that all prospective members are invited to all events. Will make efforts to reach out to non-members and share with them the value of joining.
They also give gift bag to prospective members. Speaker, sunglasses, notebook and one or two other things.
Linda – CO chapter – having membership drive event on Thursday. St. Patty’s day themed reception, will have material on-hand, computers so people can sign up as member at the event, will have $50 off membership incentives. Has 50-70 people attending. About 15 are nonmembers.
At their retreat they decided they want to increase membership by 10% this year. It’s their goal.
Planning an event for Monday evening at Midyear(?). Having an event at Union Station, which is iconic in Denver.
How is everyone working on reaching out to non-members in the community?
One chapter - LinkedIn group doesn’t get a lot of non-member traction. It’s more marketing vs. a personal touchthey’ve been doing.
Ariel: Has anyone on board spent time on LinkedIn to invite non-members to joining the group?
Veta: Maybe have a LinkedIn speaker do an event and share the power of LinkedIn.
Alberta has had some good success with LinkedIn.
Tori: will be doing a membership meeting and look at how chapters can be involved in a more holistic approach?
How to incentivize chapters to get more members back throughout the year? Also talked about member-get-a-member campaign, whichwill be launched in a couple weeks. Will probably run all year round. It would be beneficial if chapters could offer incentives for 2 – 3 months of the campaign. What kind of meaningful ways could ACC help chapters? How to retain members all year long? Email ideas if you think of something to Sherwin or chapters @acc.com
In the process of planning budget so get ideas in now.
Linda’s goal of increasing membership 10%. HOW ARE ATTRACTING AND RETAINING MEMBERS?
Has an emerging leaders group in place for 4 years. Has driven up membership #s. People signed up through emerging leaders don’t get charged for the 1st year. Wants to show them the value of an ACC membership. They get comped for that 1st year. The chapter also collaborates closely with law schools. Chapter has a table at the law school programs. Membership committee will follow up with nonmembers that attend the event.
For retention – it’s a struggle when have people roll off email communications – has to check with chapter admin to see how doing with retention.
Ariel: Use rosters portal – download a list of lapsed members. Even though they fall off chapter membership roll, can get their contact information that way.
HAVE ANY CHAPTERS FORMED ANY INTERESTING PARTNERSHIPS e.g. state bar assns. to drive membership @ a local level?
SOUTH CAROLINA: has someone on the board that’s active on the state board.
Linda – working on smaller solo in-house departments. Applied for grant through ACC and got it. Colorado has # of solo in-housepracticioners. Partners up with small law department from practitioners.
PJ – has been tasked with goal to be more vocal that ACC has resources on when to start a law department and how to start one. Which resources would HR dept.need? Looking for opportunities for PJ to speak. How can chapter help ACC meet this goal? Shoot ideas to chapters team so can pass this on to PJ.
Linda, Dana, and Luke - since chapter includes entire state, how do you handle. How do you approach servicing members across the state?
South Carolina:
3 sections that make up most members and remaining members are between Greenville and Charlotte.
Within the board they spread it out geographically so proportional to the membership. Board member responsible for sponsors and members in their area. BOD will reach out to that new member. It’s a challenge cause have ~230 members in each third of state. Lucky if get 10 people attend event in an area. Will do live event in one location, and stream in other 2 locations, or if firm/sponsor is represented in all 3 cities will have simultaneous events. Only 2-3 firms are able to showcase in all 3 areas.
CO: increasing webinars to drive attendance. In last 1/3 of the year got an uptick, which made sponsors happy. In prior years did what SC did, but didn’t have great attendance.
Other chapter – playing with if have to be 50 miles away in order to register, of if have to register if in certain area of the state.
Members in Spokane are 5 or 6 hours away. Likes idea of having a regional board person in the state. Not sure if have members near Portland or border of B.C. Mountain West may be closest to those members. Looking to see if can repeat CLEs for the other side of the state connected.
TIP: Large #s don’t always define success. Maybe just members meeting for lunch to promote more member engagement.
S. CA chapter – won award for creating regional expansion committee. Created events and programming. Got great response from existing and prospective members by offering opportunities in outlying regions.
Law firm alumni program also law school alumni program. Reach alumni – giving them access to digital docket – so provides an inside track to recruit members.
David: Corporate fellows program where place grads in 1 year program. Will be offering these people1-year membership to show value of ACC membership.
Perhaps law schools may be interested in sending out invitations to chapter events.