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Effective Local Association Practices and Tools

By MIKE CROWE
Pharm.D.; president, Genesee County Pharmacists Association How do we create thriving local pharmacy associations? As a former Kent County Pharmacists Association Board member and a current member of the MPAs Local Association Development Committee (LADC), this is a question Ive heard many times. After moving home to Genesee County, and deciding to start the process of reviving a dormant local, its a question I would find myself asking for the next several years. In September 2010, I began the process of reactivating the Genesee County Pharmacists Association (GCPA). The bulk of this process involved developing a Web site and compiling a list of potential members. In February 2011, we held our first meeting, during which bylaws were approved and 12 members willingly volunteered to serve on the Board. With a few additional steps, we were ready to apply for reactivation with LADC, and on May 17, 2011, we were granted active status once again. Since then, weve more than doubled our membership, held a golf outing that raised three times our goal, and offered numerous continuing education (CE) and legislative programs. Going through the reactivation process and our efforts since then has involved many trials and errors. Weve established some standard practices that seem to work well, but have also discontinued others that were not a good fit. The same goes for tools; some we couldnt operate without, while others were ineffective or too costly. We wanted to share the effective practices and tools with active local association members and with MPA members that may be in a position to establish a new local association. Legislative Events Bringing together legislators and local members can be intimidating, but it shouldnt be. Most legislators want to hear from their constituents. We held our first legislative event at a local conference center and provided a catered breakfast. While it was a great venue, and GCPA members were able to discuss many pharmacy issues, it was too costly to hold as often as we wanted. Therefore, we decided to take a note from other professions and hold legislative coffee hours. For our first coffee hour, we selected a Friday morning at a local Coney Island, and personally invited each of our local legislators. Nearly every legislator attended and each was very receptive of attendees concerns. As you can imagine, picking up the check for breakfast for five to 10 legislators was much less costly than a catered conference room. Education Offering CE to members is another great way to provide value as a local. But, what is the best format? GCPA has learned that offering one to two hours of live CE every quarter on a weekday evening seems to be the best fit for our members. Providing free dinner typically helps increase attendance too. In providing CE, there are three main costs to account for: speaker honorarium ($250 to $500), CE processing ($7 per hour per person) and food/venue ($12-15 per person). On the high end, this can add up to

Effective Practices
Communications Communicating with your local membership can be a challenge. First, you have to make sure you are reaching the right people. Which communications go to members and which go to potential members? You also have to make sure youre using the right channels and not overwhelming members. We limit our communication to a onceweekly news blast, which highlights upcoming local and state events. This communication goes out via fax to all pharmacies in our territory and via e-mail to members and nonmembers. Our quarterly newsletter includes a more in-depth review of past and upcoming events and goes out to members only. We try to limit physical mailings to save costs, but when we do mail, we have found that a lot can be saved by using a postcard format instead of a letter. Genesee Countys holiday party save-the-date cost less than $60 to mail to about 150 members, and this included materials and postage.

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$1,000 for an hour of CE given to 25 members; however, there are ways to significantly reduce the costs to your local. First, look for speakers that may be willing to present for free or at a reduced cost. Pharmacy interns and residents are great for this, and it can be worked into their curriculum. Another strategy to reduce costs is to offer booths outside of the event for sales representatives to purchase. If the program is related to their products, its not unreasonable to charge $500 per booth. With a reduced speaker cost and/or booth sponsors, your local can bring its cost down to $300 or less, which is much more palatable. Member vs. Nonmember Fees For every MPA member affiliated with your local, you receive a portion of their dues (approximately $25 per pharmacist and $6 per technician). At least a portion of this allocation is intended for each local to provide value to that member; however, what about nonmembers? For most of the events that GCPA organizes that have costs associated with them, the local charges nonmembers at least the per-person cost of putting the event on. With a little persuasion, nonmembers may decide its better to join than to continue paying this premium, so be prepared with membership applications. State-Level Involvement MPA supports each local, so it only makes sense that each local should support MPA. GCPA supports Michigan Pharmacy Foundation (MPF) by sending a chili cook to the Annual Fall Fest and by donating auction items to the Charity Auction at the Annual Convention (this years event is Feb. 22-24, 2013). We also support the Michigan

Pharmacy Political Action Committee (PAC) by sponsoring a hole at the annual MPF and PAC Golf Classic, typically held in June. Whenever possible, we also try to send members to MPA events such as Pharmacy Day at the Capitol in September and Legislative Day in the spring.

Valuable Tools

mailing, you can export the current addresses of your members and mail merge them to address labels. If you want an easy way to keep your local records in one place, Google also provides a place for photos and documents. We keep our meeting minutes, proof of incorporation, bylaws, newsletters and every other GCPA document on Google Drive. The calendar feature is great for not only organizing and advertising events, but when it comes time for the annual report, you can easily look back at the details of each event. You can even attach your Google documents (e.g., a meeting agenda) to a particular event and invite your Google contacts or groups.

Google Apps Perhaps the most helpful tools weve taken advantage of are those provided by Google. GCPA would highly encourage all local associations to establish a Google account. The only cost is an optional $5 per year fee for 20 GB of cloud storage. Google allows GCPA to centralize all e-mail correspondence, contacts, calendar of events, photos (Picasa) and documents. These tools make transitioning Boards at the end of each term just a matter of sharing the Google password. Keeping your contacts organized in Google really simplifies communications. You can easily create groups and name them (e.g., Local Members), which makes e-mailing multiple contacts much easier. You can also store contact information for all your members. Then, when it comes time for a physical

Fax Tool When GCPA decided that we wanted to expand our local reach by using fax blasts, we researched many different services. The one we selected was Nextiva Fax. This allows us to send up to 500 pages per month for less than $60 per year, and it doesnt require us to have a fax machine. For any pharmacy fax number (e.g., 555555-5555) we can create a Google contact for that pharmacy using the e-mail address 5555555555@nextivafax.com. We group all of these pharmacies together in an e-mail group, and then when we have a document such as a flyer that we want to fax out, we simply attach it to an e-mail and send it out to this group. The pharmacy receives the flyer right on its fax machine.

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Social Media Because they are free and relatively easy to use, we recommend taking full advantage of the social media applications Facebook and Twitter. You can link the two accounts, so you really only need to manage your Facebook page, and let members decide which platform they will follow. A Facebook page can almost replace the need for a Web site; it shows up in searches, has an about section, a place to keep photos, and an events section. The only downfall is that not all members are Facebook users and, therefore, they wont receive the interactive experience. Be sure to use other routes of communication to connect with all your members. Form-Building Software To collect information and payments, we needed to find form-building software. We found JotForm. With it, anyone can build forms very easily, and our members could quickly click on a link, sign up and pay for our events. The free version allows you to create unlimited forms, accept up to 100 submissions per month and up to 10 payments per month. If youd like the option to accept up to 1,000 submissions and payments per month, you can upgrade to a two-year membership for $69.95. E-Commerce Of course, if youre going to accept payments, the money has to be processed and routed. With JotForm, there are several options, including PayPal and Google Checkout. The one we prefer is Stripe. With Stripe, payments made using a JotForm form are automatically transferred to our bank account every seven days. Each payment processed costs $0.30 plus 2.9 percent, which is basically a standard transaction processing charge. This may seem like a big cut, but by offering this convenient way to pay, were able to attract more registrants and managing our payments is much easier.

Where to Get More Information

Google Apps
Google Apps offers communication, collaboration and publishing tools, including e-mail accounts on your organizations domain (like jdoe@example.org). Its quick and easy to get started! Google offers deployment resources to help you get started or try it out with a 30-day free trial first. Visit www.Google.com/apps for additional information.

Nextiva Fax
With Nextiva, all you need is an Internet connection in order to send and receive faxes. Their online fax service is easy to use, affordable and gives you great flexibility. Nextivas online fax service enables you to fax by e-mail, via Microsoft Office, from your online control panel or continue sending faxes through your fax machine with a Nextiva fax adapter. The cost is as low as $4.95 per month. Visit www.NextivaFax.com for additional information.

Social Media
Facebook allows organizations to create pages to share their stories and connect with people. Whether your page is for a business, a brand, a cause or a public figure, Facebook makes it easy for you to build a closer relationship with your customers, members or fans. Visit www.Facebook.com/pages/create.php for additional information. Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. Businesses and organizations use Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in their products and services, and build relationships with customers, partners, members and influencers. Visit www.Twitter.com for additional information.

Additional Resources
There are many more resources available for local associations. LADC has several listed on their Web site at MichiganPharmacists.org/ mpa/locals/resources, and I hope the ones provided in this article and the examples from GCPA have proved valuable. One resource offered by LADC that is especially valuable is the local grant. LADC reviews grant applications on a quarterly basis for local legislative and membership projects and events. Visit MichiganPharmacists.org/mpa/locals/ grants for more information on applying. Funds can even be requested by those interested in organizing a new local association! If you have any general local resource questions, please contact LADC at LADC@MichiganPharmacists.org. For questions regarding any of the practices or tools discussed within this article, please feel free to contact me at MCrowe@GeneseePharmacists.org.
MichiganPharmacists.org

JotForm
JotForms online form builder helps you create and publish web forms anywhere, anytime. Use it to collect payments, registrations, leads and uploads. JotForm offers a free package or several subscription options. You can upgrade, downgrade or cancel your service at any time, and even if you cancel, you dont lose any previous data! Visit www.JotForm.com for additional information.

Stripe
Stripe is a simple, developer-friendly way to accept payments online. Stripe charges 2.9 percent + 30 cents per successful transaction. There are no setup fees, monthly fees, card storage fees or hidden costs: you only get charged when you earn money. Earnings are transferred to your bank account on a seven-day rolling basis. Visit www.Stripe.com for additional information.
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