1. Developing Relationships to
Reach Your Next Generation
of Members
Brought to you by the ASAE Membership Section Council #ASAE
CAROLYN HOOK
Membership & Engagement Director
New Jersey Society of CPAs
SUSAN DYER
Membership Development Manager
New Jersey Society of CPAs
REBECCA REED
Next Generation Initiatives Manager
American Institute of CPAs
2. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
POLL
What NextGen audiences are you currently
reaching or planning to reach? Choose all that apply.
a) Primary School Students (grades K-5)
b) Middle School Students (grades 6-8)
c) High School Students (grades 9-12)
d) College Students (including advanced degrees)
e) Young Professionals
f) Other. Please specify.
3. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
POLL
What NextGen audiences are you currently
reaching or planning to reach? Choose all that apply.
a) Primary School Students (grades K-5)
b) Middle School Students (grades 6-8)
c) High School Students (grades 9-12)
d) College Students (including advanced degrees)
e) Young Professionals
f) Other. Please specify.
5. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
POLL
Who are the stakeholders you are currently or planning
to engage? Choose all that apply.
a) Primary School Educators (grades K-5)
b) Middle School Educators (grades 6-8)
c) High School Educators (grades 9-12)
d) College Faculty & Staff
e) Alumni
f) Parents
g) Employers
h) Other (Type your response in the comment box)
6. TODAY’S PANELISTS
SUSAN DYER CAROLYN HOOK REBECCA REED
College Student
Ambassadors
College Career
Presentations
Career Night
High School
Career
Presentations
College Educator
Workshops
Scholarship
Program
High School
Educator
Resources
High School
Student
Outreach
DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
8. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
CLASSROOM PRESENTATIONS
Students: Interactive presentation
Educators: Request presentations
Members: Make presentation
@Carolyn_Hook
10. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
njcpa.org/become-a-cpa/scholarships
Provide scholarships to the best and brightest New Jersey
accounting students
@Carolyn_Hook
11. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
2016 Scholarship Awards
1-Year College (47) $269,000
4-Year High School (20) $140,000
1-Year Chapter College (22) $59,500
Total Awards (89) $468,500
Students: Apply, write essay,
interview, mentor program
Educators: Promote in the
classroom
Members: Rank essays, interview
finalists, mentor program
Employers: Contribute to In-
Name-of Awards, photo op with
recipient
Chapters: Raise funds and run
chapter programs
Past Recipients: Many return to
support the program
Leaders: Contribute and attend
awards ceremony
@Carolyn_Hook
14. College juniors and seniors are eligible
Must be or become an NJCPA member
Online applications and recommendations reviewed by staff
Selected at the start of the academic year in September
Mission: Spread the word on their college campus about the
accounting career, NJCPA membership and becoming a CPA
STUDENT AMBASSADORS
@NJCPA_Susan
DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
15. STUDENT AMBASSADORS
ACTIVITIES
Recruit new student members
Promote NJCPA Scholarships
Schedule NJCPA presentations
Attend Career Fairs with the NJCPA
Interacting via social media
Serve as liaison to their accounting
clubs, Beta Alpha Psi and other
accounting organizations
@NJCPA_Susan
DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
16. Rewards for high performance, including the opportunity to
attend one day of the NJCPA Convention & Expo in
Atlantic City (awarded to the highest-performing
ambassador)
Recognition through the NJCPA website, social media
sites and New Jersey CPA magazine
An expanded network of contacts through their NJCPA
affiliation
A worthwhile addition to their resume
NJCPA Student Ambassadors & Campus Presentations
@NJCPA_Susan
BENEFITS
17. Fall and Spring Semesters on New Jersey campuses
Accounting Clubs, Beta Alpha Psi Chapters and Accounting
Classes
Benefits of Becoming a CPA - Freshman/Sophomores
CPA Exam Requirements – Juniors/Seniors/Graduate Students
Members / College alumni participate
Coordinate with the student ambassadors and faculty
CAMPUS PRESENTATIONS
@NJCPA_Susan
DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
18. DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
EDUCATORS COMMUNITY
Non-member & Member Educators
Deans & other Faculty
@Carolyn_Hook
WIFM
Bi-annual Accounting Educator
Workshop
Volunteer Opportunities
Online Networking/Community
Access to latest professional news &
resources for students
19. QUESTIONS?
SUSAN DYER CAROLYN HOOK REBECCA REED
sdyer@njcpa.org
973-226-4494 x266
@NJCPA_Susan
chook@njcpa.org
973-226-4494 x221
@Carolyn_Hook
rreed@aicpa.org
919-402-4500
DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
20. RESOURCES
DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS TO REACH YOUR NEXT GENERATION OF MEMBERS
StartHereGoPlaces.com
njcpa.org/become-a-cpa/scholarships
Pay It Forward Presentation
Student
Ambassador
Guide & Point
System
Thank you Clarence. While I introduce myself, if you haven’t had a chance to respond to our opening question, please type your response TO ALL in the comment box. We experienced some technical difficulties with the polling option, we’re using the comment box today.
I’m Carolyn Hook. I am the Membership & Engagement Director at the New Jersey Society of CPAs. During my 20+ years here, I’ve seen membership come a long way and have worked with membership recruitment, retention and engagement, volunteer management, leadership development, component relations, student and young professional activities, strategic visioning and governance, program evaluation, research, and database management.
I’ve been active with ASAE for more than 10 years writing articles for the Technology, Membership and Component Relations section newsletters and ACRONYM. One of my favorite volunteer roles is the Associations Now Writer's Resource Pool. This year I was a Gold Circle Awards Judge. I’m sworn to secrecy, so you will need to come to the Marketing, Membership Communications Conference next month to find out the winners. I served on Component Relations Section Council and will begin my second year on the Membership Section Council in June.
I’m so excited to be a part of today’s presentation on Developing Relationships to Reach the Next Generation of members. You can see from your responses that today’s attendees are looking to reach students and young people at various stages.
Today’s session is going to focus on reaching high school and college students and working with stakeholders to make an impact and reach association goals. So get your trapper keeper and stock up on book socks because we’re going back to school.
So let’s find out who your stakeholders are. Once again type your responses to all in the comment box.
Who are the stakeholder you are currently or planning to engage?
Another set of diverse answers. We won’t get to all of these. But your responses could help us provide other content on the other stakeholder groups. And later, we’ll ask you to share what you’re doing to engage the groups we didn’t address.
Today, we’ll cover a range of stakeholder audiences.
I’m going to ask Susan and Rebecca to introduce themselves and tell us who are the primary audiences their organizations are trying to reach and which stake holder groups they are building relationships with.
During our presentations, feel free to post questions. We’ll address them later in order to keep things moving.
including members, alumni, educators, service providers, employers, and more.
Susan?
Rebecca?
Thank you Susan and Rebecca. You may have noticed that Susan and I are from the NJ Society of CPAs and Rebecca is from the American Institute of CPAs. The NJCPA is an independent state professional association, with 15,000. We are not a chapter of the AICPA – but we are certainly like-minded and our associations work together on many initiatives, along with the other state CPA associations. I just wanted to offer that clarification before we get started.
I’ll turn it over to Rebecca as we move into High School initiatives. [CHANGE PRESENTER TO REBECCA]
Thank you Rebecca.
NJCPA also engages at the high school level through a program we established in the early 2000s called “Pay it Forward.” Yes, we totally stole the name from the movie. It’s a way that our members are giving back to the profession by inspiring the next generation to become CPAs.
The concept is easy. We reach out high schools (guidance counselors, accounting and business teachers) in September to let them know that we can provide a speaker on the CPA career during a week-long PIF week in November. They let us know when they need a speaker. We get members to sign up to speak. The matching process is done online – members can contact the school themselves, or we will contact the school on their behalf.
We provide a script and a presentation – all downloadable from our website. We also have a series of Career videos on our youtube channel that presenters can pick from to show.
The presentation is interactive and asks a series of questions – that look like puzzle pieces. For each answer the presenter dives into the response discussing the value and some intriguing tidbits about the CPA career. Did you know that CPAs who work for the FBI might carry a gun? All the puzzle pieces come together and connect to another CPA-related story.
Last November
97 presentations confirmed
91 schools confirmed
84 members confirmed
Approximately 4500 students reached.
In addition to talking about the CPA Career, our members are promoting the NJCPA Scholarship Program.
The NJCPA Scholarship Fund has been around since the 1960s and provides merit-based scholarships to high school seniors who will be majoring in accounting and college juniors and senior accounting majors.
The high school award is a 4-year award and each recipient gets a member mentor.
The college award is a one-time award.
Each recipient is given a free student membership.
The program engages various stakeholders throughout the process including employers, chapters and leaders. Many past recipients give back by be mentors.
Employers contribute and have awards named for them, they get a nice photo. Firms usually connect with their recipient and often have them as interns or hire them after graduation.
Our educators, both high school and college support the program. Many read applicant essays before submission. This year we had one educator who drove to our office with transcripts for 25 students to make sure we had everything on time.
New Jersey being a small state makes it easy for us to get around to NJ colleges and universities. Susan Dyer makes sure we’re building relationships to help us get in the door.
Susan….
Hello. My name is Susan Dyer and I am the NJCPA Membership Development Manager.
In the accounting profession, college enrollments in accounting programs are strong but those same accounting students when they graduate are not taking the CPA exam. Which is an issue for the profession and CPA firms and companies who recruit CPAs.
The student ambassador and campus presentations program’s primary goal is to encourage and educate the students to take the CPA Exam by sharing the benefits and steps to becoming a CPA. The secondary goal is to increased student membership in the NJCPA.
In addition to college faculty, our student ambassadors are our eyes and ears on campus.
The NJCPA Student Ambassador Program selects top student members at New Jersey universities to educate fellow accounting students on the value of NJCPA membership.
We strive to have a student ambassador on each of the NJ campuses with an accounting program/major.
To become a Student Ambassador they need to fill out the online application that we post in August. It helps if they have a faculty recommendation. We make the selections in early September.
Once they are all selected, we give them the mission of spreading the word on campus about accounting career, NJCPA membership and becoming a CPA.
.
To achieve the mission they are given a resource guide that includes a list of activities to complete.
Each of these activities when completed gives them points. The student ambassador with the most points by May is invited to attend our annual Convention & Expo at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City at no charge.
This is the list of activities they are given and each activity is assigned a points value.
For this academic year we had 10 schools represented.
For the next academic year, our goal is to increase the number of schools including the community colleges.
These are the benefits for the student ambassador.
They include the NJ Convention & Expo incentive I mentioned earlier but we also recognize their efforts in our publications.
They also will be expanding their networks on campus and through the NJCPA
Finally, it helps build their resume, leadership and communication skills.
The NJCPA conducts campus presentations to Accounting Clubs, honor societies, other accounting related groups and accounting classes throughout the academic year.
Our goal is to educate the students about the CPA profession including the many different industries and specialties it can expose them to.
Our message to the freshman and sophomores is about the profession, the opportunities, the mobility of the CPA license and earning potential.
Our message to the juniors and seniors and graduate students is about the CP A exam , the educational requirements and the nuts and bolts of the exam application. Which for those who don’t know is a very rigorous and time consuming exam both in preparation and actual taking of the exam.
College alumni also participate in the presentations because they bring a real world perspective by talking about their career path and experience with the CPA exam. The members enjoy going back to their college and giving back.
This year we have done 14 presentations on campuses and hope to increase that number next academic year.
Carolyn’s efforts with Accounting Educators supports these activities. So I’ll turn it back to her.
Thanks Susan. We are working to enhance our relationships with college accounting educators. We have just over 200 member who work in education. 141 are members in the CFO position or work in the finance area at the university – leaving only 70 who are full-time classroom educators. We also have members who work as adjuncts. In order to reach the broad accounting educator community, we created an online community for any accounting educator, business school deans and other interested faculty to share ideas. It’s also a way that we alert educators to professional news and provide information about our scholarship program and Career Night.
Twice a year we put together a half-day workshop to provide news about the profession, trends in accounting education, and more. This year we had a group of educators prepare a response to the AICPA’s CPA Exam Exposure Draft on proposed CPA Exam changes.
That’s the scoop on what we are doing in high schools and colleges. We have time for some questions. [Look at comment section]
[Potentials: ]
How did you align these stakeholder groups to your objectives?
Are there other stakeholders that you considered? Or previously collaborated with?
Tell us about how you identified stakeholder responsibilities and how you got them to agree?
Are there any incentives?
What are your program metrics?
What have you tried that didn’t work?
Share a “success” story.
In the last few minutes, I wanted to quickly share some resources.
Clarence will send out a copy of our presentations.
You can also reach out to Rebecca or Susan or me for any information about the programs we discussed or visit our websites for more information.
Here are some articles you find online including some great articles on identifying key stake holders. The Stake holder analysis tool at KnowHowNonprofit.org will help you identify the needs and expectations of stakeholders.
The Board & CEO Roles for Achieving Association Goals book is a new ASAE release. Chapter 6:
Strive for Win/Win Stakeholder Relationships is available free online at http://consultwestman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Chapter6_Board-CEO-Roles.pdf
Finally before I turn it back over to Clarence, don’t miss these upcoming ASAE events.
