Book Review | Elevating Engagement: Uncommon Strategies for a Thriving Member Community

By Rebecca Johnson

This article draws on insights from Elevating Engagement: Uncommon Strategies for a Thriving Member Community by Amanda Lea Kaiser to explore how our Chapter can strengthen member engagement and create a more meaningful, connected member experience.

Imagine you have been an AIA member for 5 years because your firm pays for it. You have never attended an AIA event because after a long day of work sometimes you just don’t have the energy for it.  But you open the Friday events digest email, like you do every Friday, and you see a talk happening next week that looks really interesting. You check your calendar, you are free next Thursday, so you do it – you register for the event.

Next Thursday comes around, it’s 5:15pm you have to walk to 1218 Arch Street which takes 15 minutes, so you shut down your computer and tell yourself: “just go, you were interested for a reason, just go and check it out. Plus they will have snacks and you can get a free beer.” You get there a bit early – apparently you walk faster than google directions – and walk in the door. There is a table with no one sitting there, but a few sharpies and some blank sticker name tags.  There is a food and a bar set up over on the left hand side of the room. There are about 15 other people standing around in 3 clusters of conversation. No one looks up or acknowledges your presence. It feels like everyone knows one another and you immediately feel like this is just not worth it.  So before you know it, you turn around and walk out.  Frustrated and validated in your belief that AIA just isn’t worth it.

OR

Next Thursday comes around, it’s 5:15pm you have to walk to 1218 Arch Street which takes 15 minutes, so you shut down your computer and tell yourself: “just go, you were interested for a reason, just go and check it out. Plus they will have snacks and you can get a free beer.” You get there a bit early – apparently you walk faster than google directions – and walk in the door.  You are greated by two smiling faces at the table off to the left hand side. They welcome you and ask if you registered for tonight’s event. You tell them you do and they say: “Oh hello, is this your first time coming to an AIA event?” You respond that it is. One of the people stand up and says: “Welcome. My name is Juli, I work here at AIA Philadelphia. We are so glad you are here. Let me walk you around and introduce you to our Executive Director and our committee leaders who organized tonight’s event. And I see that you are at Ballinger, your new space is incredible – how’s that going?”  You end up in a long conversation with one of the committee leaders about your work and interest in tonight’s topic.  They encourage you to join the next zoom committee meeting and meet other folks similarly interested in what you care about.  You have two free beers and walk out around 7:45pm feeling proud of yourself for making the effort and cautiously optimistic that this new committee involvement might bring about unexpected opportunities to meet people and explore new career interests.

Ok be honest – how many of you have had first experience with AIA Philadelphia or any other organization? I know that the answer to that question is way too many people.  I can give you all of the reasons or explanations why the first experience might happen (it’s typically because of limited staff capacity), but the bottom line is what our members deserve is the second experience every single time.

The book Elevating Engagement: Uncommon Strategies for a Thriving Member Community by Amanda Lea Kaiser is an incredibly rich resource for how to engage members in a meaningful way that fosters belonging. I had the pleasure of attending a session with Amanda at the AIA National Conference in Boston earlier this year, and Amanda described these two scenarios in her session and all of the AIA staff from Chapters across the country were nodding their heads.  As nonprofit, association Executives we get it…but we also know it’s not ok and that Amanda is 100% correct. Our members need to feel welcome and valued – every time.

I encourage anyone interested in fostering belonging within their firm or maybe on another board or organization you are involved in, to read Amanda’s book – it is a quick read, but there are literally over 100 ideas of how you can do a better job creating a welcoming environment for the online and/or in person community you are trying to foster and support.

Check out https://amandaleakaiser.com/ for more on the book.