Greetings!
What is more important than relationships? Especially within the AIFD family.
I’d like to talk today a little about AIFD and how our relationship with our Partner/Management team ARC works.
This will hopefully shed some light on what scope of services ARC contractually provides for AIFD, but also show you how they go the extra mile for our association.
AIFD is a very complex volunteer-based organization. We were incorporated in the state of California as a 501(c) (6) membership- based non-profit organization that exists to promote its members’ interests, without the goal of making a profit. In addition, these organizations must make sure that no individual or shareholder benefits financially from the organizations’ income.
However, we still rely on our membership dues and our annual symposium events to generate the revenue required to “pay the rent” and build a nest egg to support the growth of AIFD.
We have two Co-Executive Directors, Camron King and Andres Polanco and an amazing staff of ARC to keep our organization running smoothly. But they are more than a management company for our association, they consider us “partners” which is just one of the reasons the Task Force chose ARC as our management team. It was a good fit for our organization.
Let me tell you about their contractual scope of services that we rely on as a volunteer organization.
This team oversees the Administrative and Accounting Services for our association, including the National Board of Directors, ensuring that all board activities, policies and procedures are handled properly and in a timely fashion. They oversee our six regional Chapters, providing education, and administration support while creating updated and effective marketing tools for fundraising events.
ARC has experienced and dedicated staff which not only provides bookkeeping staff to manage our banking, oversee investments, monthly reporting of budgets, profit and loss balance sheets and assist in creating our annual budget and symposium budget. Kathi Campbell works diligently with our Treasurer and Finance Committee with everything financial, and to develop better systems that will give us better financial tracking of our programs.
We have fourteen active committees and our staff provides support, and guidance and direction to the committee chairs and committee members. Assisting in creating goals and timelines for each year. This year we have staff attending every committee meeting to provide professional advice and ensure the success of these committee goals and directions. This level of management team participation is better than any we have ever experienced.
Conference and Meeting Planning is another huge aspect of ARC’s scope of service. Camron and Andres are well respected and known for the high-quality conferences and conventions they have managed. They have a team of experienced meeting planners, who have the resources to assist in program development, value added sponsorships and exhibition programs. They work as a team with AIFD’s Symposium Director Suzie Kostick, to understand our complicated needs so that they can bring AIFD Symposium to the next level! They will work together with the Marketing Committee and Symposium Chair to connect with convention visitor bureaus to generate engagement though our Blooms Over Program, and possibly generate revenue for AIFD. Their collaborative work with the AIFD Foundation ensures opportunities for AIFD through grants and scholarships and looks at additional opportunities for Grants to AIFD that support our mission. The relationships that ARC has built with host hotels around the world will ensure that AIFD contracts with the venues that best fit AIFD’s complicated needs for symposium year after year.
Technology support is another service that ARC provides, to ensure that AIFD maintains and upgrades as necessary to be in alignment with industry norms.
Publications and Website Support Services, is where ARC has saved AIFD time and money. They have in-house copywriters, graphic designers, and web and communications. ARC maintains and manages our website. Tracy Brown and Jennifer Schaupp are working hard to refresh it frequently and the goal is to make the AIFD website the “go to” place for organizational information and community engagement. Did you love the look of our new updated Membership Directory? It had to all be entered manually last year, and Tracy and Jenny drove the creative layout!
They also work with Marketing, Focal Points, our “Designs of the Decades Floral Competition collaboratively with the AIFD Foundation and Charlie Groppetti, to make all marketing materials cohesive and eye catching!
Marketing and Publicity, ARC assists with marketing and publicity for AIFD, its development programs, events, symposiums, and other needs. This not only includes supporting cohesive marketing and public relations/ communication plan support, but also the execution of Strategies and Plans. Last year when the Focal Points Committee Chair stepped down, Sharlene Garcia, an ARC staff member took the blog under her wing, provided support, created content and ensured the success of the blog. Today she works tirelessly with the committee, keeping us on track with deadlines and overseeing the layout of the Blog. Camron and Andres provide content as well! This is just one example of how we partner with our staff! We are in the midst of creating an annual marketing timeline for all committees so that we can be more efficient in our organizations communications and create a cohesive plan as we move forward to seek out other forms of communication, such as broadcast texts.
Last, but not least, our Certification Program. Certification is a key benefit and aspect associated with much of the training, education and work of AIFD. The team at ARC lead by Lindsay Campoy-Jones, work hard to ensure that all membership specific communications are not only done on time, but with the grace that AIFD members deserve. Lindsay and her team make sure that the proper delivery, implementation, execution and promotion of the certification efforts, programs and awardees is done in an accurate and timely manner.
The Membership Chair, and committee works with Lindsay and other key staff including our PFDE Software team to update policies and procedures that work for our membership.
I know this is a lot of information, but I truly believe that having a clear understanding of the exact contracted scope of service that ARC provides us is important! We are volunteers and we all have a life, businesses to run and families to tend to. Our committee chairs and committees have jobs too, so it is important that we have a clear understanding of what our management team does, and what our responsibilities are and how we work as a team to make this association grow.
We have lots of space to grow together and continue building on this relationship.
I hope this gives you some food for thought. Growth through understanding!
Be humble and Kind and have an amazing October!
Laurie Lemek
National President AIFD
