As two of the MPI chapters that won 2017-2018 Chapter Excellence Awards have shown, there’s more than one way to reach the coveted prize.
For the Connecticut River Valley Chapter, it involved multiple steps of upgrading certain chapter components over a three-year period, not with a timeline focused on winning awards, but improving the chapter experience for members and prospective members.
For the Tennessee Chapter it was more of an engrained, competitive attitude among the members that had been around for a long time and more or less evolved over the years.
In each case, the same superlative result was reached, and there is something to be learned from their achievements that can offer a great example for chapters throughout MPI.
Both chapters have key practices in common—emphasis on attracting new members, a commitment to strong and frequent education sessions, paying regular attention to their chapter financial reports and member surveys and close attention to guidance from MPI headquarters.
“We take to heart everything that comes out of MPI Global; for instance, we look at our business plan every month to see where we are,” says Annamarie Grise, CMP, 2017-2018 president of the Connecticut River Valley Chapter.
Each chapter has committed to working with charities in their communities as well.
Here’s how the two chapters achieved the Chapter Excellence status.
Connecticut River Valley
Grise gives credit to the chapter presidents for the two years preceding her own presidency: Kate Copeland, CMP, in 2015-2016 and Lacee Colwell, CMP, in 2016-2017, for laying the foundation that allowed the chapter to win the Excellence Award last year.
“We are a relatively small chapter with 93 members, and it was in 2015 that we realized that we needed to make some changes,” she says. “It wasn’t as if we just made one or two changes. We did some fundamental things that made significant changes in our chapter experience. The 2015-2016 president started over for us on some key fundamentals—like our chapter finances, for instance. We went from operating at a loss to achieving profitability. We also started listening closely to our members about what kind of education and what kind of experiences they wanted.
“And each successive president took it to the next level. Our 2016-17 president wanted our volunteers to be engaged, so there was an emphasis on that. She also focused on the question, ‘Are you getting enough out of your membership?’ For my year, the focus was on taking those members who were doing the volunteering and putting them into board positions. I was all about building the right team. I was thrilled by the fact that everyone who applied for a board position was so motivated and so driven and really had a commitment to making our chapter stronger.”
The chapter made significant strides in two areas that contributed heavily to winning the Excellence Award—membership growth, with a 13.41 percent growth rate, and financial growth, with a 3.23 percent growth rate in 2017-2018.
Grise says a key part of getting the finances turned around was tapping into local suppliers who were willing to donate everything from meeting space to audiovisual services in return for putting their services in front of a group of meeting professionals—the chapter members—who would be likely clients for years to come.
Tennessee Chapter
“Tennessee has always been high performing and ambitious about what we want to accomplish, from committing to best practices to RISE Awards to education to membership,” says 2017-2018 Chapter President Katie Rogers, CMP. “We have always been reaching for the stars to work hard to make it a successful chapter and to be a chapter that people want to be a part of.”Because the state’s two largest cities are 212 miles apart, Nashville is home to the chapter headquarters but Memphis also has chapter members and events of its own—Tennessee is one chapter with two branches.
“Between the two of us, there is one, if not multiple, events going on every month,” Rogers says.
Education events involve a broad spectrum, from risk management to F&B trends.
“We keep our education very robust and we tailor it to all of membership, whether they are planners or suppliers,” Rogers says. “Programs are targeted for senior level, intermediate and new meeting professionals. We look closely at the surveys MPI Global sends out as far as effectiveness of learning styles and we also do our own focus groups as well on what the membership wants and needs and we tailor our program for that.”
She says the chapter began winning MPI awards in 2012, and that boosted chapter members’ enthusiasm to earn still more awards. The awards included a 2012 RISE Award for Community Achievement in Knowledge and Ideas; 2016 RISE Award for Member of the Year, Carol Norfleet, MBA, CMP, DMCP; Educational Programming Award - Past President’s Road Trip; 2017 Merit Awards: Overall Chapter Satisfaction Award; Leadership Satisfaction Award; Top Performing Chapter; 2018 RISE Awards for Membership Achievement and Meeting Industry Leadership - Michael Owen; 2018 Merit Awards - Highest Net Member Growth and Overall Excellence Award (142 new members in one year).
2017-2018 Chapter Excellence Award Winners
MPI Connecticut River Valley ChapterFounded: 1982
Current membership: 93—49 percent planner, 33 percent supplier, 18 percent student
MPI Tennessee Chapter
Founded: 1980
Members: 383, including 181 planners (47 percent), 194 suppliers (50 percent), seven students and one faculty
