August/September 2005

Volume 46, Number 1

Ways to Add Value and Make Money: How communities can increase the services they offer and make more money while doing so

by John Hedtke

We should always be thinking of ways in which we can provide more service to ourselves and to other STC members. By extending the services offered through your chapter or the local branch of a virtual community, you can enrich the skills, educational opportunities, and, yes, even your chapter's coffers. This article will tell you about some tried-and-true ways in which you can provide lots of value to your community's members that will generate interest and enthusiasm as well as providing a way to draw in new members, new sponsors, and an answer to the eternal question "What am I getting for my dues, anyway?!?"

The Rulez

Okay, there are some rules about what I'm going to tell you. First, none of these ideas require you to spend any money. (Dig it!) All of these things can be done through applied effort, wheedling, and perhaps a bit of whingeing as well, but no bucks. Second, you can expect to see results in 3-6 months. None of these things will show immediate results; they all take some lead-up to pull off, even if it's just advertising that they're going to happen. Third, if you do any of these, you have to do them and follow through. One or two things (like the library) can be done slowly and even stall for a while, but for the most part, it's better to not do these at all than to do them halfway.

You'll probably want to forget about everything you've done so far. Well, maybe not everything, but very possibly a lot of what you know and have been doing. Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. What I mean by this is, if you've been doing things one way and they haven't been generating money or interest in the community or the STC, it's probably time to do something different.

Also keep in mind that "non-profit" doesn't mean "no money." The STC is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. We have some specific reporting and operating requirements to qualify for and to maintain this status, most of which will land on the local treasurer's lap. However, a common and self-defeating misperception is that because we're a non-profit, it's a bad idea for us to make money at all. I am pleased to tell you that it's okay for STC chapters and groups to make money!! You can charge for meetings, seminars, books, teleconferences, coffee mugs, and local SIG group memberships. The key thing is that the group must maintain a focus of being an educational and professional organization, with the idea that you'll be doing things for the benefits of the members of the group or of other sister groups. If you're successful at creating better programs, enhancing the job opportunities, and running auctions, you're going to make your members very happy. Happy members show up at more meetings, volunteer for things, and they get their friends to join up, too. They get more jobs and are more likely to stay with the STC because there's a clear value to them. The bottom line is that if you make your members happy and more successful, your group will make buckets of money as well. (Actually, it's a really good idea for your chapter or group to work on generating your own sources of income so you're that much more self-sufficient. With the belt-tightening that's been happening, having your own funds at your disposal will make it a lot easier to do things than if you have to get money that may or may not be available from the STC office.)

Finally, if you are successful at what you're doing, sooner or later, someone's going to come tell you that you're (a) doing it all wrong, (b) destroying the STC or some variant theme thereof, or (c) a fool for even attempting this in the first place. You'll probably have at least one dissenting opinion no matter what you do—a plan that doesn't offend somebody couldn't possibly interest anybody, after all—so don't figure you're going to be able to please absolutely everyone. But do listen to the opposing views, particularly if there are a lot of them (they could be right after all).

Okay, that's enough pontificating. Let's get started!

What You Can Do

Here are a bunch of ideas for things you can do to add value and make money. I've done all of these as VP and President of a chapter and they all have worked wonderfully.

1. Present better programs.

   Are your chapter's meetings being attended by only a small percentage of your members? You may need to perk up the program schedule. There's always some room for improvement. When I was VP & President of the Puget Sound chapter, I raised meeting attendance from 20-30 people/meeting to over 150/meeting and made a bloody great pile of money, too! (150 people was about 20% of the chapter membership at that point.)

   The key is to have meeting topics that are FUN. Don't go for the humdrum; try to get something sparky, rather than things like "Serial Commas, Pro or Con: A Panel Discussion" (I've included some ideas that have worked really well in a list below.) Some topics are always going to sound a bit on the flat side, but the program topic and write-up can help a lot. STC members respond well to fun stuff. You should be able to see an immediate increase in meeting attendance.

   Other than coming up with good program topics, I only did one thing different for publicity: I stopped sending a reminder postcard—it was costing the chapter its profit margin and didn't have a good return. Instead, I put together the program schedule 4-6 months in advance, published a tear-out sheet in the printed newsletter that could be posted on a cubicle wall, and sent regular (2-3x/month) email reminders to the entire chapter plugging the upcoming current program/activity and also reminding them about the subsequent programs or activities.

   Once I had a general email template for this (shown below) and had created an email list (which I did from the STC HQ supplied spreadsheet of current member data for the chapter and student chapter), announcing anything was a matter of five minutes or less. I'd just plug in a blurb about whatever it was—frequently able to lift the text from a previous email or the newsletter columns—and send it.

   Tips:

   • Get interesting speakers. There are a lot of speakers who are willing to come to your chapter for minimal expenses and do a presentation on a wide variety of topics. If you've got a great idea but can't figure out who to have present it, check with your director for resources on people who could fill the bill. And there's an STC speaker's bureau being assembled at the Society level to help coordinate speakers for events. (Check with the STC office for more information on where to find this.)
   • Door prizes are good. Get local authors, software companies, others, to donate goodies to give away. Figure 2 or 3 door prizes/meeting.
   • Don't stop for the summer. Have some kind of activity each month, even if it's only a picnic or a lighthearted meeting. There was a handwriting analyst in the Puget Sound chapter one year, a guy who talked about how to make effective presentations another year, and a freelance graphic artist who showed us the wide variety of work that he did as (with many slides to illustrate) a third year. Take a tour of a printing plant, even—most communicators these days have never seen what actually happens when they fling their stuff over the transom to be printed. There are always lots of printers in the area who would be glad for the PR plug of showing their potential customers how they do things. The reason for not stopping is that you keep the momentum going.

   The key is to be active. Keep people informed at all times about what's coming up now as well as what's coming up over the next few months and keep reminding them in the newsletter, in email, and at any of the events as part of the prefatory comments prior to the beginning of the activity.

   The payoff: If you get people coming to meetings, you'll have more money from the meetings themselves. Members will network more, which is 60% of the value of any professional organization. You'll also have a chance to keep hammering home the other values of the STC: help with jobs, upcoming seminars, competitions, conferences, and so on.

2. Maintain an active job line.

   If you don't have a job coordinator, appoint one for your chapter right away. The job coordinator should do two things: they should solicit businesses for job listings as a free service and they should maintain a book of resumes for STC members.

   As part of their job, the job coordinator should encourage local job shops and agencies to send reps to meetings to make announcements and recruit. The chapter has an advantage in that they're getting the ear of people who can help them get jobs; the agencies have a source of qualified people. It all works out.

   The job coordinator should post new job orders on the chapter website and/or send them out to the members via email. Depending, you may also want a chapter job line with an answering machine that's updated regularly. Access to the jobline should be free for chapter members and student chapter members, and should have a small charge for non-members.

   The payoff: An active job line reminds members that the STC is interested in helping people get jobs and also shows employers that the STC is a strong resource for them when they need contract or permanent communicators.

3. Start a job fair.

   Once you've got a good relationship with agencies and employers in the area, it's time to have a job fair. The economy is still pretty bad, but things seem to be picking up a little and there's always some turnover that needs to be filled. If you have enough volume, consider having a job fair.

   Contact all the high-tech contract agencies and as many of the larger fulltime employers in the area as you can. For the agencies and companies with a number of positions, give them a table or part of one. They're going to be the presenters, collectively. Charge all the attendees, STC and non-STC members alike, say, $5/head. What if you have just one or two positions that you're looking to fill? Prepare a job sheet that lists the following:

   • Job Title
   • Job Description
   • Company
   • Location
   • Salary/Salary Range
   • Contact Information
   • Qualifications for the position
   • How to apply
   • Who to talk to for more information

   Have prospective employers provide 50 copies of each job sheet (don't be surprised if you have a couple hundred people at the job fair, so be ready to get copies on short notice). One copy will be taped up on a white board in the room; the other copies will be left on a table for people to pick up. As an employer, you'll also have a gold star on your name badge so people will know to talk to you directly (if possible, have little café tables and chairs for this purpose).

   Consider a door prize or two for this event, donated by one of the companies/agencies. You might even have a door prize an hour or every half-hour depending on volume. Regardless, all the contact with the agencies and companies is the perfect time to hit them up for donations of goods, services, and even sponsorships.

   This is a great PR opportunity for the STC. With so many communicators out of work and/or looking for work, there's plenty of opportunity to bang the STC drum loudly. Make sure you've lots of STC brochures, membership applications, sample copies of the newsletter, the next 4-6 months of programs on that 8-1/2" x 11" sheet I was mentioning earlier, and anything else you can think of.

   The key concepts here for the job fair at first are "cattle call" and "free PR." You want to get as many potential employees going past as many potential employers and picking up sheets on as many potential positions as possible. You also want to plug the STC as much as you can and tell absolutely everyone why they should show up at meetings and talk about jobs and/or why they should join the organization and participate.

   The payoff: Just like an active job line, job fairs provide opportunities for STC members to get more work. (If there's a better draw for STC communicators, I've not run into it yet.) Job fairs also are a great draw for non-STC members who might be interested in what we have to offer, particularly when we're clearly offering more of it.

4. Present a series of Saturday mini-seminars.

   Mini-seminars are 4-hour or 8-hour seminars on a specific topic of interest to STC members, students, and other technical communications professionals. These sessions are designed to provide specific technical skills, let you brush up your already existing skills, or give you enough information on a topic to go out and learn more on your own. The focus of miniseminars is to provide extensive technical or professional skills and knowledge that can't be communicated in a meeting format. Sample mini-seminar topics appear below.

   Mini-seminars should cost $40-50/STC members, $45-60/non-members, and $25-30/students for the half-day sessions and $75-100/STC members, $85-120/non-members, and $50-60/students. (Offer non-members an opportunity to combine a seminar registration with an STC membership so they get a slight discount over and above the member rate; it'll all work out nicely.) For some seminars, there may be a materials fee, too. Registration at the door is on a "space-available" basis. In all cases, add a $5 or $10 surcharge for registration at the door.

   Mini-seminar instructors should be paid for their work: $100-200/half-day session and $200-350/full day session. Consider a small bonus if a topic draws a larger crowd, too. Miniseminars are higher priced than most STC functions but they should be worth it. Publicize them for 3-6 months in advance heavily and keep track of registration. Consider canceling any mini-seminar that doesn't have, say, 3 people in attendance.

   The payoff: Mini-seminars should feel 'meaty' compared to monthly meetings. Participants should come out of them with the impression that they've gotten a lot of information that they didn't have before that they'll be able to use fairly directly in their jobs or careers. Mini-seminars in the Puget Sound chapter would net as much as $5000-10,000/year for the chapter.

5. Have a fund-raising auction

   Many chapters have a fund-raising auction, frequently as part of the May or June investiture meeting for the new officers. You'll get donations of goods and services from members, non-members, and companies, and auction them off.

   Publicize both the event and the list of auction items for several months prior to the event in the newsletter and the chapter website. Let people know the latest goods that have been added to the list, too; there will be interest in this.

   Tips:

   • ?Be adventurous when it comes to ideas for donations. The sample auction list below shows typical goods and services available in an STC auction. Don't just hit up companies or people that know what the STC is or even what a technical communicator is. Range far afield and see who would like a tax write-off. We are a 501(c)3 organization, after all; here's one place it pays off. Consider bakeries, delis, landscapers, toy stores, book stores, picture framers (that'll go over big with STC members, believe me), and anywhere else that you can think of. Also hit up the vendors at the regional and annual STC conference, or other conferences, for goodies. Shucks, try to get some of them to show up and present at a meeting, too; lots of them live for that kind of PR.
   • Have a lively auctioneer! You want someone who can jazz the crowd up and get them to bid more. The difference in return for a good versus a dull auctioneer is easily 2x.
   • ?If you've never done a benefit auction before—or even if you have—immediately go out and buy a copy of "Benefit Auctions: A Fresh Formula for Grassroots Fundraising," by Sandy Bradley, available on Amazon and at many other stores. Sandy's book will tell you things you never suspected about running an auction that will reduce your workload, increase everyone's satisfaction, and make more money.

   The payoff: Auctions are a great fund-raiser, a nice tax write-off for individuals and companies, and make for a really lively evening. Auctions can raise anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars depending on the donations and how many people are in attendance.

6. Set up a chapter lending library.

   To remain competitive, technical communicators must continually be learning and expanding their skill sets. The easiest way to do this is read technical books and magazines in our fields or out of them. Unfortunately, technical books and magazines are expensive and it can be hard to find the exact book or magazine you need. Similarly, buying copies of every software product that you may need to learn is highly impractical. In fact, if you bought one technical book a month, subscribed to two magazines, and bought two new products a year, you could easily spend over $1000—a tidy sum.

   Training budgets are one of the first things to get slashed by companies in tough times and the same thing applies to individual technical communicators. It's a short-term fix but it's hard to justify putting more things on the credit card if things are looking dicey. Public libraries are a resource that every technical communicator should use regularly, but most of the recent or highly technical books and magazines will not be available. The solution is for chapters to set up their own technical lending libraries that pools resources to create a permanent collection for technical communicators.

   Briefly, you can get book and magazine donations from members, authors, software companies, vendors, publishers, companies, and magazine publishers. (If you're interested in details on how to do all of this for free, email me and I'll send you more information on how to do all of this.)

   When you've got enough resources, you'll need to set the library up. The typical chapter technical lending library is housed at an easily accessible location. This is usually a few spare bookcases in someone's house, but it can be anywhere where there is reasonable control for checking out materials. (The mechanics of this are going to be ad hoc from chapter to chapter, particularly chapters that are spread across a wide geographic area.)

   You don't need to catalog the library extensively. A simple list of the books, magazines, and software can be created and maintained on the local chapter website. Checkouts can be done with an online file or 3x5 cards. All the materials should be stamped or labeled with something that says "Property of the Library."

   Check-outs should be allowed for one month for books, and two weeks for magazines and software. Popular books or software can be restricted to one week. Late fees can be assessed as deemed appropriate; software, particularly new or expensive products, should be lent with the clear understanding that failure to return it in a usable condition will carry the requirement of replacing it with a like product.

   The payoff: A chapter technical lending library is not much for raising money as a rule, but it's a great value-added feature for your chapter. Not only a great technical resource for the members, it is a great marketing resource for the chapter. The best policy is to provide the library's services as a free benefit for chapter members and for the associated student chapter and charge a small, per-book fee for lending privileges to non-members.

7. Look for corporate donations and sponsorships.

   This pretty much speaks for itself. Check with local companies, both high-tech and not, for their gifts-in-kind and their donations programs. (Start with HR or the PR group; they'll probably be able to route you to the right people.) One thing you may be able to get is donated equipment or software. For example, would your chapter benefit from a donated older computer or laptop, an LCD panel, or surplused copies of software? Here's another tack: would the company be willing to donate meeting space, underwrite refreshment costs at a meeting, or do things for the annual STC banquet. Be profuse in your thanks, sending TY notes in the mail and making a big fuss on the website and in the newsletter and also at meetings: "This meeting has been subsidized by the great folks at MumbleCo, Inc., makers of FrabbusWare 9.7, a copy of which has also been donated as tonight's door prize. Please take a look at MumbleCo's website and see what great stuff they're doing right now and don't be shy about dropping them a brief TY note for their sponsorship."

   The payoff: The corporate sponsors pay for things, meaning you don't have to. They donate things, enriching the attendee's experience. They give you energy from outside the community resulting in a net increase of resources available to the group.

8. Consider setting up a local freelancing SIG.

   Depending on the percentage and number of freelancers in your community, it may be productive to have a local SIG that focuses on freelancer issues. This is going to be a subset of the local group initially but it's aimed at helping freelancers be more productive, more competitive, and find more/better jobs. As the group gains momentum, you'll have freelancers inviting people that they work with and you'll be able to tell them about the wonders and glories of the STC and of your local group, too.

   Have monthly meetings (that don't conflict with anything the local group is doing, naturally) that have announcements of job orders, a brief discussion of what's happening in the community, and a speaker on topics of direct interest to the group, such as marketing yourself, finding new business, how to fire a client, making cold calls, and so on. A good technique is to have everyone in the group introduce themselves at the start of the meeting with a short description of what you're doing and what you hope to get out of the meeting/SIG. (And everyone should be encouraged to bring resumes and business cards.)

   I recommend charging nothing or only a minimal amount for membership in the freelancing SIG. The costs will probably be very small—just a meeting space usually and the newsletter can easily be done online. Make it really easy to show up and get benefit.

   The payoff: While the initial payoff is low, members of your local community will feel like you're doing a lot for them… and you are. Freelancers tend to be a vocal group about wanting programs and activities that focus on their needs; this is the very thing for providing that. The longer term effect is a feeder group to the community and a core of strongly motivated members and non-members who will talk about the STC at each job they go to.

9. Have a local competition.
   

   Competitions can be a great value-added feature for your chapter or community as well as a dependable moneymaker. There's a lot of information about running a successful competition in your community available from the STC office that says things better than I can, so let me just add that you'll want to keep the competition interesting. Change the theme, make the award certificates different and attractive from year to year, have the awards banquet at different locations, and consider having a few door prizes for banquet attendees as well.

   Hot Tip: You can solicit competition entries in languages other than English. ("Noooo!!!" I hear you cry.) What you can do is figure out what languages you'd like to solicit and then line up judges. Judges can be found in the following places:

   • Translation firms (who get their axes ground by getting a lot of publicity w/r/t their competition)
   • Bilingual writers, particularly native speakers, who are now technical communicators themselves
   • Language departments in universities

   The payoff: The local competition is a strong bonding experience for communities when done well. Entry fees can be a substantial source of revenue, particularly with money coming in from non-members and organizations.

10. Solicit bequests to the chapter.

    A lot of us are getting to the point (i.e., past 40) where having a current will seems like a Really Good Idea. A note in the community newsletter about identifying the STC or the local community as a beneficiary in one's will is adequate. Talk to the STC Office for information about how this has been done in the past.

    The payoff: It is a shame and a sorrow to lose people, but many people feel a sense of satisfaction in knowing that there is a scholarship fund or educational project they're endowing.

Summary

What started as an article of a couple of pages of quick tips has morphed into an 8-page monster… and you haven't even seen the examples yet! In the interests of some shred of brevity, I'm going to call a halt to the explication here, but if you want more information about any of these ideas, please feel free to get hold of me and I'll be glad to tell you lots more about whatever you'd like to know.

(For John's complete, 25 page article including examples of his suggestions, click here.)

Chapters can do lots of things for their members that will enrich their STC experience while at the same time enriching the chapter. Chapters don't have to be impoverished. It's certainly true that it can be hard to raise money but STC chapters are actually in a good position to do so. There's room for everyone to become happier and more prosperous as a result.

John Hedtke is a Fellow of the STC and is the Region 7 Director. He is the author of 24 books, including "Firefox & Thunderbird Garage." He can be reached through his website, www.hedtke.com. John is a member of the Mid-Valley (Eugene, OR) chapter.