APA Divisions Council Award Application January 18, 2018 1. Division Name: APA Women and Planning Division 2. Division Contact Person and Contact Information: Breanne Rothstein, Vice Chair ([email protected]) 3. Award Category: Overall Division Performance 4. Name of Division project, program, or process being nominated: Membership services, Program development, and Communications. 5. Description of the project, program or process, including the targeted audience. This nomination is for overall division performance across a full range of activities, highlighting in particular the Division’s membership development and engagement, expanded programming in the form of webinars, high quality sessions at national and local chapter conferences, hosting local events, active social media platforms, innovative metrics, and over-the-top communication methods with new members. 6. Identify how the project, program or process: meets the award criteria; can measure success; and is transferable to other Divisions Demonstrate Overall Member Service, over multiple years In 2014, the Women and Planning Division had slowly dwindled to just over 100 members. While there was a loyal group of people dedicated to the mission of the division, the volunteer pool was small and unable to accomplish their annual goals. Since 2014, the division has achieved an amazing transformation worthy of the overall division performance award. With a major re-structuring of the executive committee, a new, powerful Google Drive cloud based filing/document system, an update to the bylaws, and a small, but powerful name change, the division now includes over 1,200 members, and has tripled the paying membership since 2014. This award submission does not fully capture the entirety of the work of the Division over the past 4 years, but seeks to highlight the most measurable, the most impactful and the most replicable efforts for other divisions, chapters, and ultimately, APA at large. Membership Development By adding a Director of Membership to the Executive Committee to the Division, we have been able to accomplish the following goals, resulting in over 1,200 members. ● A personal phone call to each new member, welcoming them to the division and asking about what they would like to see accomplished ● A tracking of the status of each member, tracking who has joined, and who has left and why (reminders that membership has lapsed and to re-join) ● A map and State tally of where each member is located (to coordinate with Director of Chapter Engagement), and which we report on to our members twice a year. ● Connections, and sponsorships with several local chapter Women in Planning groups Engagement and Programs Members will not stay members if there are no benefits. Therefore, a primary charge of the past 4 years (consistent with APA’s overall charge) is to provide tangible and free benefits to being a member. In addition to the benefits the division has always provided (a quarterly newsletter and session offerings at the national conference), new benefits include:
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APA Divisions Council Award Application January 18, 2018
1. Division Name: APA Women and Planning Division 2. Division Contact Person and Contact Information:
Breanne Rothstein, Vice Chair ([email protected]) 3. Award Category: Overall Division Performance 4. Name of Division project, program, or process being nominated:
Membership services, Program development, and Communications. 5. Description of the project, program or process, including the targeted audience. This
nomination is for overall division performance across a full range of activities, highlighting in particular the Division’s membership development and engagement, expanded programming in the form of webinars, high quality sessions at national and local chapter conferences, hosting local events, active social media platforms, innovative metrics, and over-the-top communication methods with new members.
6. Identify how the project, program or process: meets the award criteria; can measure success; and is transferable to other Divisions
Demonstrate Overall Member Service, over multiple years
In 2014, the Women and Planning Division had slowly dwindled to just over 100 members. While there was a loyal group of people dedicated to the mission of the division, the volunteer pool was small and unable to accomplish their annual goals. Since 2014, the division has achieved an amazing transformation worthy of the overall division performance award. With a major re-structuring of the executive committee, a new, powerful Google Drive cloud based filing/document system, an update to the bylaws, and a small, but powerful name change, the division now includes over 1,200 members, and has tripled the paying membership since 2014. This award submission does not fully capture the entirety of the work of the Division over the past 4 years, but seeks to highlight the most measurable, the most impactful and the most replicable efforts for other divisions, chapters, and ultimately, APA at large.
Membership Development
By adding a Director of Membership to the Executive Committee to the Division, we have been able to accomplish the following goals, resulting in over 1,200 members.
● A personal phone call to each new member, welcoming them to the division and asking about what they would like to see accomplished
● A tracking of the status of each member, tracking who has joined, and who has left and why (reminders that membership has lapsed and to re-join)
● A map and State tally of where each member is located (to coordinate with Director of Chapter Engagement), and which we report on to our members twice a year.
● Connections, and sponsorships with several local chapter Women in Planning groups
Engagement and Programs
Members will not stay members if there are no benefits. Therefore, a primary charge of the past 4 years (consistent with APA’s overall charge) is to provide tangible and free benefits to being a member. In addition to the benefits the division has always provided (a quarterly newsletter and session offerings at the national conference), new benefits include:
● Webinars. The Division has hosted several free webinars over the past 2 years with several hundred attendees participating at each. Each webinar included follow up with attendees in some fashion, including a Facebook Live event (with 200 views) to answer all the questions generated from the most recent webinar in December 2017. These webinars included panels discussing issues relevant to women, and are a vital platform for our Division to engage in in-depth discussion with planners all over the country.
● An active and engaged social media presence on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/APAPWD/). We average one post per week with fun facts, relevant articles, notice of upcoming activities, and general information/statistics. Our average post reaches 200 people, while our most popular posts have reached thousands of followers. Our page currently has 1,040 followers and 1,010 likes.
● Book Club. We offer a virtual book club for members through a Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/798700410284858/), complemented with local events, currently serving 112 members. Three books a year are selected through a vote of our Book Club Members, providing our members and friends of the Division a curated offering of cutting edge planning topics that explore the mission of our Division. We have also hosted two local Book Club meet-ups, which were a terrific success. Using our membership map and our Facebook Group metrics to target local ‘hot spots’ of member presence, we aim to increase our local programming to four local Book Club events next year.
● National Planning Conference Reception. The Division hosted our first ever ticketed event at the NPC in New York City in 2016. The 100-person event was sold out over a month prior to the Conference, and we saw this reception as a significant member cultivation event in addition to providing a fun and social networking event for our membership.
Demonstrate replicability of performance measures/success measurement
For our Division, the primary performance measurement we use are number of participants and members. If we are reaching people, engaging people, and generating more members, we are successful. We also aim to ensure we are providing a consistent pace of programming and outreach, ensuring our members hear from us and have the chance to engage with one another through the calendar year. We use the following metrics to measure our performance: 1. Overall members (1,200 as of November 20, 2017) 2. Paying members (332) 3. Number of new members annually (50 to 75 annually over the past 3 years, excluding non-
paying student “5 for free” program members) 4. Number of program participants
a. Webinars (250 and 400 per webinar in 2017) b. National Conference Sessions (70 to 100 at each session at NPC) c. Local Division-sponsored events (80 and 110 in 2017) d. Book Club (up to 110)
5. Social media “reach” a. One post per week, averaging 200 reached (often with 10x on more popular posts) b. Likes and follows (1,011 likes and 1,039 follows on our Facebook page)
6. Active, engaged volunteers. We doubled our Executive Committee to 10 officers and have a committee structure for the first point of engagement with interested volunteers and new members.
Planning & Women Division Membership Dashboard December 2017
MEMBERSHIP ACTIVITY
Total Members: 1201
Memberships Lost: 15
New Members: 472
MEMBER OUTREACH Prospective Members: 46
Current Members: 7
Welcome Letters: 359
Reminders of Membership Expiration: 0
ITEMS TO REPORT
• FAICP 2019 Nomination Cycle • Chapter Interest • Compilation of Marketing
Material/Brochures • Mapping of Member Locations
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Mar-13 Oct-13 May-14 Dec-14 Jul-15 Feb-16 Sep-16 Apr-17 Nov-17
Division Membership
2 0 0
8
294
1 13
3 1
875
0 0
Division Members By Type
FCLTI/FCLTS
FSTU
GPBM
LIFE
MEM
NOM
NP
RET
STF
STU
XMEM
XSTU
Planning & Women Division Membership Dashboard December 2017
FAICP 2019 Nomination Cycle
Chapter Interest
Compilation of Marketing Material/Brochures
Mapping of Member Locations
• FAICP 2019 Nomination Cycle folder has been set up in Google Drive.
• FAICP nomination process outline, and accompanying Gantt chart, have been updated & preloaded with dates for 2018 in anticipation of 2019 nomination cycle.
• Process outline and Gantt chart have been updated based on our experiences with the process this year.
• Texas Chapter leadership is interested in hosting a Planning & Women Division event at the Texas Chapter conference in November of 2018.
• Still looking for suggestions for information to include in a short email or letter to solicit interest in membership from identified prospective members highlighting the benefits of membership & recent activities.
• In anticipation of working to establish on-the-ground WPD events, and matching up members in the same geographic areas, I’m currently working to map out locations of all 1201 members and identify where concentrations of them occur, for this purpose. I should have that finished up before the first of January.
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