Hard to believe 2023 is coming to a close! As we prepare for 2024, we’d like to take some time to look over what we’ve accomplished in 2023. And of course, as always, a big thank you to our clients, colleagues, and fellow collaborators who supported us all year long. We couldn’t have done it without you.
What we did to help train and support associations and their components…
Strategic Planning: Worked with 30 clients on a range of projects including strategic planning, volunteer management, components relations and more. The work took us to 8 states to meet with board members, association staff, volunteers and component members.
Fun fact: We traveled more miles overall and more miles by air over last year – enough to earn Southwest A List Preferred Status! And the top city visited? Chicago, which Peggy saw in all four seasons over 6 visits. The second? Missouri with 2 visits.
Training, Speaking & Workshops: Developed, produced, facilitated and/or participated in more than 45 in-person and virtual meetings. These included client webinars, conferences, workshops, volunteer and staff training, leadership retreats and more.
Association Component Exchange: In collaboration with our partners Billhighway, designed and produced 7 webinars and 2 in-person workshops exclusively for CRPs. Stay tuned for CEX 2.0 coming in Spring 2024!
Tip: Be sure to visit our CRP Solution Center for resources including building a dashboard, creating a resource portal and developing effective training strategies.
How we shared our knowledge with the community…
Content writing/curation: Published a series of posts on the Mariner blog including two guest posts from industry experts. Also published/featured in external blogs including AssociationsNow, EventGarde, Billhighway and Get Me Spark Consulting.
Waypoint monthly newsletter: Sent out 11 editions of our monthly newsletter to 421 active subscribers.
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Published works: Wrote a bylined article for Associations Journal “Associations Evolve: 2024 & Beyond” on shaking up your volunteer strategy (see pgs 72-73).
Volunteer Research Report: A Holistic Approach to Volunteer Management: Participated in a 2022 research project for ASAE on how associations are supporting – or not – and how they can improve their volunteer management system. The research was published in 2023. Quoted in Associations Now article by Mark Athitakis regarding the findings.
Tip: Be sure to visit our Reports and Tools page for more research including the 2022 Chapter Performance & Benchmarking Report, and our Webinars page for past recordings and recaps.
*And one additional kudos goes to Peter Houstle who was named Gardian of the Month by Event Garde!
Finally, be sure to check out end of year personal reflections from each of Mariner’s Team members…
✔ Peggy Hoffman on Unlocking a Wave of Potential
✔ Peter Houstle on the Power of “A”, i.e., Association Person!
✔ Carol Blattau on Finding inspiration … and a little fun
Here’s to all of you finding your wave of potential, super power and source of inspiration...while having fun…in 2024!