Association Meetings: Here to Help

In 2000, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) held its annual meeting in Orlando and decided, for the first time, to organize a volunteer event through which its members could give something back to the community that was hosting them. To that end, the Rosemont, IL-based association teamed up with KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington D.C., whose mission "envisions a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America." With the help of KaBOOM!, the AAOS was able to identify a disadvantaged neighborhood in the Orlando area that needed a playground and organize a day during the annual meeting when AAOS members could go out into the community and build one.

The outing was such a success that AAOS signed up to build a total of 10 playgrounds over as many years—each in the host city of the association's annual meeting. Next up: San Francisco in 2008.

AAOS is just one of a growing number of associations that now incorporate volunteer outings into the agenda of their annual meetings. CVBs across the country say that while visiting associations have traditionally donated cash and in-kind contributions to local causes and organizations, more and more groups are now inviting their members to get into and involved in the local community. Although it's sometimes a challenge to organize, planners are finding that it's more than worth the work—not just for the community, but also for the association itself.

Friends Indeed
The first step in creating volunteer events as a part of the annual meeting is finding the right local cause. Associations often work with the local CVBs to determine which organizations would fit best with their groups' goals, while some form ongoing relationships with national volunteer-based organizations like KaBoom! or Habitat for Humanity. Other associations find it best to work through their own local or state chapters: "We have local volunteer committees that use their connections in the cities to find sites for us, sometimes through word of mouth," says Joe Martinez, education specialist with the Indianapolis, IN-based Future Farmers of America (FFA).

Once the cause has been chosen, the next big challenge is incorporating the volunteer time into the overall agenda of the annual meeting. And that, association planners say, can be tricky. "Last year it was really crazy, because we let the [local volunteer] sites pick what times were best for them to have volunteers come," says the FFA's Martinez. Over the course of one day during its annual meeting, the FFA dispatched more than 800 member-volunteers to four local agencies in Indianapolis, with the specific assignments based wholly on the needs of each individual organization. That was a bear to organize, and, Martinez says, "because we did it all in one day, we missed people who weren't available that Thursday but would have been available Friday, for example."

This year, volunteer interest more than doubled, and Martinez found himself with more than 2,000 volunteers ready to pitch in. "We streamlined the process and created four shifts over two days," he says. Volunteers can select either the morning or afternoon shift, during which they'd be sent into the community to work at local sites. The FFA conference ran from Wednesday to Saturday, so he scheduled the volunteer shifts over that Thursday and Friday. "By Saturday, some chapters would already be departing, so we knew that if we were really going to capture [as much interest as possible], it had to be Thursday and Friday."

For its upcoming conference in New Orleans, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) is offering members the opportunity to help rebuild and paint hurricane-damaged schools with the Louisiana Recovery School District. The AACRAO has made October 27 its volunteer day, while the actual meeting runs from October 28-31. This strategy minimizes interference with conference content but creates a potential obstacle for would-be volunteers. "Some institutions won't pay for an extra night in a hotel, and for many, that day counts as an extra vacation day," says Janie Barnett, associate executive director of the association. "But when we decided to do this volunteer program, we already had our sessions and speakers lined up and in progress." As a result, Barnett is working on setting up a book drive and other programs through which volunteers who can't travel to New Orleans a day early can still contribute to the local school system.

Sparing the Time
Association planners who have been incorporating volunteerism into their meeting agendas for a long time generally start organizing it at the same time they begin to work on the rest of the conference. "The [planning] process starts right after the conclusion of the previous annual meeting," says Lauren Pearson, spokesperson for the AAOS. AAOS works with KaBOOM! to organize everything from transportation to on site food and entertainment. "Usually, the meeting is in February or March, so we start reaching out to members at the beginning of August. We advertise in our internal magazine that all members receive, we send e-mails to those who have volunteered before, and we work on word of mouth," Pearson says. "We also promote the day within the local community itself as something that will lift up the community, and we encourage residents to come out and participate, too."

AAOS' volunteer day is also one day prior to the start of the annual meeting, but Pearson says the organization has yet to encounter any attendance problems related to that. "The conference is really fully scheduled morning to night from Wednesday to Saturday, and we do want them to attend all the sessions," she says, which is why she tacks on a day at the beginning for the volunteer work. "And I think if we scheduled it at the end of the meeting rather than at the beginning, we'd have less of a turnout. People would be tired after so many busy days, and would have the feeling that they've got to get back to the office." But this way, Pearson says, her greater concern is that attendance would overwhelm the needs of building the playground: "So we always have side projects that beautify the neighborhood in which people can participate."

Indeed, volunteer opportunities for attendees of annual meetings come in many shapes and sizes, and do not necessarily involve going out into the community. The St. Louis, MO-headquartered Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) holds its national youth gathering every three years, and each time, its members participate in a Habitat for Humanity building project. For this year's meeting in Orlando, the bulk of participating volunteers will build components of new homes right on the floor of the convention center. "In the past in other cities, we would build the entire home and then present the keys to the new owners at the end," says Mark Kiessling, program director for the LCMS National Youth Gathering. "This time around, the local Habitat chapter asked us to build the components." Members will work on these components in shifts throughout each day of the gathering. At the same time, other members will go into the community to do what the LCMS calls "servant events" in conjunction with Second Harvest and other local charitable organizations. "We divide our volunteer organizations into categories," says Kiessling. "So if you want to work on an environmental project, or a human care project, you can select that."

The Greater Good
Associations that volunteer locally during their annual meetings continue to enjoy the benefits of that good work long after their members have left the meeting and headed back to their own hometowns. At the LCMS, Kiessling says his team intentionally provides as wide a range of volunteer activities as possible to increase the chance that youth members might find an interest they would then continue to pursue upon returning home.

The same is true for the FFA. Although providing a wide selection of volunteer activities is, in Martinez's words, "the most challenging piece of the puzzle," it is also potentially the most rewarding. "The whole idea is not just to come and give, but to return home and say, 'I did this great thing while I was there. How can I expand on that and do it here at home?'"

And what benefits the greater good also benefits the FFA. As an example, Martinez cites the FFA's recent restoration of a farmstead in the greater Indianapolis area. "It was a perfect fit for us. It highlighted the historical ties of the organization, reinforced our message, and highlighted where we are and where we are going."

For other associations as well, the volunteer work serves not only as a teambuilding exercise, but also to help create a positive reputation for the association itself far beyond the host city. "Our members have such a great time building those playgrounds that it's actually started to spread to the state societies, who are starting to build them on that level," says the AAOS' Pearson. Indeed, she says, "building playgrounds has become a signature of the orthopedic community."

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To Make a House a Home
At each of its annual meetings for the past seven years, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has given the key to a newly built Habitat for Humanity home to a new homeowner. This year, they'll do it again in Las Vegas—in November. So what was NAR President Pat V. Combs doing one late-June Saturday afternoon, in the 104-degree Las Vegas heat?

Raising the frame of that house.

Combs and her fellow NAR members had flown to the Nevada desert five months ahead of the convention to work on the house. NAR takes the convention-related community service trend one step further by inviting its members to work on the annual-meeting volunteerism throughout the calendar year. "We bring people in from all over the country to work on the house, and we also partner with the local and state branches of our association to find more volunteers locally," Combs says.

NAR members regularly work year-round on their volunteer projects to see their efforts realized and celebrated at the annual conference. In 2006, when NAR met in New Orleans (and was among the first large associations to reaffirm its commitment to meet in the city post-Katrina), the members didn't contribute just one Habitat house. Instead, they worked year-round on the local chapter level to build the components of 48 separate houses, which they then shipped to the Gulf. Additionally, during the conference, the NAR dispatched 2,800 volunteers into the community for a total of 10,000 hours of service. And, because not all of the shipped houses could be assembled during the annual meeting, NAR has been sending—and continues to send—teams of people to New Orleans throughout the year to erect the remaining homes.

Originally published August 01, 2007

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