Once one of the largest chapters in the country, the San Francisco Chapter of the Society of Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) had been experiencing declining membership, revenue, and perceived value. As President Elect, I started informal conversations with members and past members to gather feedback, identify possible board members who had big ideas, and understand what membership wanted most. What was clear was dynamic, exciting and bold initiatives were needed to reinvigorate members. This became the focal point of our strategic planning.

I assembled an energetic Board of Directors with one singular mission: create meaningful value for our members based on their feedback. We chose a theme of Big, Bold, Bad A$# to keep us motivated and inspire membership to keep bringing us ideas of how we can be of service to their professional needs.

• Programming for technical staff as well as marketing and business development professionals
• In-person and virtual events (social and educational)
• Newsletter
• Email marketing campaigns
• Website redesign

• Doubled annual sponsorship to highest in chapter history
• Instituted 10 highly valued initiatives to attract and retain members and improve perception of the chapter (Scholarships, Senior Business Leaders Forums, Founders Awards Return, Client Speed Dating, Fellows Forum, Video conferencing for remote attendees, New Member Mixers with the Board, Business Development Workshop for Principles By Principles)
• Offered 75 CEUs worth of programs, with registration at all events sold out
• Reversed declining membership numbers so that we again became the largest chapter in the country with 286 members (42 new members)
• Program evaluations showed that positive sentiment increased by 30%, and annual membership evaluation positive sentiment improved by 35%
• Received the President of the Year award from the National Society of Marketing Professional Service