New Member Advisory Committee (NMAC) Report Spring 2006

The New Member Advisory Committee (NMAC), a standing committee of the Board of Directors (BOD), was formed to support the Strategic Goal of Building an Aligned, Engaged and Diverse Membership. NMAC met on June 21, 2005 by conference call, October 23, 2005 at FNCE and subsequently on January 10, 2006 and March 10, 2006 by conference call.

To achieve its purpose, the NMAC has established goals and the current program of work. The following report summarizes actions taken to date related to these goals.

Goals 1 and 2

  1. Serve as a vehicle to enhance communications within the ADA for new members and assist new members in their career and leadership development.
  2. Encourage new members to become involved in the ADA, its dietetic practice groups, its affiliate organizations and the ADA Foundation.
Actions to Support Goals
  • Serve as a review panel to enhance communication to new members (first year of ADA membership) via the eight issues of the new member newsletter, Behind the Scenes at ADA…an update for new members.
  • Investigating new methods for communication among new members (e.g., CoI, Blogs).
  • Strengthening the affiliate liaison program to ultimately achieve participation from all affiliates.
  • Utilizing the NMAC/Affiliate New Member Communication Representatives CoI and conference calls to share best practices.
  • Participated in the New Member Forum at FNCE, St. Louis.
  • Hosted the New Member Reception at FNCE.
  • Collected testimonials about ADA benefits for use in marketing materials for new members.

Goal 3

3. Serve as a resource to the Board, House and staff in the review of programs, services and publications.
Actions to Support Goals
  • Provided feedback received from the new members to the BOD, HOD and staff.
  • Provided two reports to the BOD and HOD this year.

OUTCOMES:

Worked with Member Value Committee to investigate the pros and cons of a potential Inactive Membership Category.

Evaluated Behind the Scenes at ADA via an electronic survey.

Supported the affiliate communication representatives to help implement strategies for new member retention. As a result, affiliates have implemented new, novel initiatives for new members including: offering new member ribbons at affiliate annual meetings; inviting new members to a new member reception; recognizing new members by name in newsletters and the Web sites; implementing structured networking between new members and affiliate board members; implementing specialized mailings of materials to target new members including a new member column in affiliate newsletters; involving districts in retention of new members.

2005-2006 New Member Advisory Committee
Mary Cornetta, Chair
Lara Borders
Britta Brown
Sari Budgazad
Kelly Byrant
Tammi Greenwald
Julie Lazaroff
Jennifer Lefton
Angela Lord
Jennifer Pingleton
Stephen Roch
Stacey Greenfield, Staff

Submitted by: Stacey Greenfield, RD, Director, Affiliate Management

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