StarChapter of August: AWAF
Automotive Women's Alliance Foundation (AWAF) is a non-profit dedicated to the advancement of women in the automotive industry. They raise funds to award academic scholarships for women seeking to enter or advance their automotive careers – 139 recipients for a total of $344,500 to date! We were able to connect with AWAF’s Marketing Co-Chair, Patricia Price, to talk about developing new programs to add member value to AWAF.
What was AWAF’s strategy for engaging new members in the past year?
Between the various board members and existing members, we all contribute to engaging new members and make them feel welcome. We do that through inviting them to join a committee, ensure we connect with them specifically at events to welcome them, get to know them, introduce them to others, allow them to volunteer to help at specific events, etc. In the past, we’ve had “buddy” programs where board members are assigned new members to help in their assimilation into AWAF. We also strive to add new and engaging programs such as our mentorship, coaching, and professional development, which make it valuable for our members to become and stay members.
Tell us about a successful event/meeting you organized last year.
Last year marked our 21st year hosting the Swinging “Fore” Scholarships golf outing, and it was a year to remember! AWAF awarded another record?breaking number of scholarships, Awarding $35,000 in scholarships to 14 deserving recipients. This event is our biggest yearly event and includes great networking, renowned executive luncheon auction and fishbowl auction, too. We are really looking forward to this year’s event as we approach $350,000 awarded to deserving women in automotive since 2001 and as we embark on 22 years of hopefully another record breaking event hosted at Forest Lake Country Club.
The AWAF network is extensive. Does the board get ideas on how to improve membership value from other foundations?
We collaborate with other similar non-profit organizations through in-kind partnerships. We certainly learn a lot from each other in ways to better add value to our members. We help one another create awareness and consistently help make introductions to industry leaders who participate as speakers at events.
Do you have any tips/advice to share with other board volunteers?
In addition to continuous online engagement with members, board volunteers can play an integral role in engaging new members offline. Face-to-face focus groups or one-on-one interviews will provide answers to questions that you really want to know: Why did you become a member? Are we meeting your needs? Will you renew your membership? Have you recommended membership to any friends or family? Why or why not? What else can we be doing?
What is in store for your members this year?
We have our 22nd annual Swinging “Fore” Scholarships golf outing right around the corner on August 21stat Forest Lake Country Club. We also have a couple of other annual events coming up later in the year. These include Pumps and Power at Sundance Shoes, and our Year End Holiday event at the Birmingham Country Club. These events are great for our members to mingle with each other, and non-members to see what AWAF is all about. We also started our Mentorship and Coaching programs that are designed to build and embrace your personal and professional brand. We would love for anyone interested in learning more about AWAF to join us at one of our events as we help create and sustain a diverse automotive industry, optimized by empowered women.
How have been able to utilize StarChapter to run AWAF and reach its goals?
Our goal in switching to a new website platform with StarChapter was to more effectively communicate our vision and mission to scholarship applicants, past scholarship recipients, sponsors, potential sponsors, members, and potential members. We have received numerous compliments from users of the new website stating that it's overall easier to use, easier for scholarship applicants to apply, etc...
Would you like to share the success story of your chapter with other board volunteers? We'd love to feature you! Fill out this form to let us know.
StarChapter of July: Rocket City SGMP
The Society of Government Meeting Professionals (SGMP) Rocket City- Alabama Chapter is a working, viable organization for every planner and supplier in the State of Alabama to utilize as he/she plans meetings and events. They strive to put forth the best information and provide educational tools to enhance their member’s events. Felicia Beaulieu, Rocket City SGMP’s 1st Vice President, and Jennifer Middleton, Rocket City SGMP's 2nd Vice President, were able to provide StarChapter with some insight into how their members stay engaged and get a lot of value out of the programs SGMP Rocket City puts together for them.
1. What was Rocket City SGMP’s strategy for engaging new members in the past year?
Rocket City SGMP works closely with the Von Braun Civic center in helping to manage their check-in system for attendees at various government contractor events. For this volunteer position, we ask our group to attend and we have a spectacular turnout by our members. These moments allow us to talk more candidly with our members who attend and help us get to know one another better.
2. Tell us about a successful event/meeting you organized last year.
We planned a social event with one of the high-end restaurant here in town. They coupled with us to have a fundraising event at their March St. Patrick’s day wine parings event. Rocket City SGMP chapter donated bottles of wine, dressed them up in beautiful packaging, creating a “Wine Pull” and sold them off to the highest bidder. There were surprise hotel stay certificates in 4 of the packages, this made the bidding higher than the base bid amount of $20.00. It raised more than $400.00
3. The Rocket City SGMP network is extensive. Does the board get ideas on how to improve membership value from other chapters?
The best ideas that we have gotten are from the yearly National Education Conference (NEC) events. We collected the idea of the Wine-Pull from the San Diego 2016 NEC.
4. Do you have any tips/advice to share with other board volunteers?
Become involved, volunteer to help with an event that one of the other members is hosting. Ask to help, this way you don’t feel like an outsider. You become a part of the group and it’s a cool thing to go to a grand opening, of a hotel or business and you run into one of your SGMP members. You then have someone to talk to, and you can take information back to your businesses that may help your organization grow or have a place to go to as an off-site meeting.
5. What is in store for your members this year?
We are working on a transition for the Rocket City SGMP. Several people have made moves to other organizations and so we are regrouping. We would like to have a more cohesive group and to involve more protocol personnel from the Redstone Arsenal. We feel that they will benefit from our training and information sessions and they would be able to meet more of our suppliers who would help them with housing for their visiting training groups.
6. How have been able to utilize StarChapter to run Rocket City SGMP and reach its goals?
We use StarChapter for everything! We use it to manage our website where we communicate with our members with our Calendar of Events, Upcoming Education and Announcements. We manage registration for our monthly meetings and invoice through StarChapter. You can look back and see past educational programs and plan future programs based on past attendance. That history is very helpful. StarChapter has been especially critical this year as we transitioned some board responsibilities and it is so user friendly we could pretty much teach ourselves!
Would you like to share the success story of your chapter with other board volunteers? We'd love to feature you! Fill out this form to let us know.
