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• We encourage the organization to continue its efforts to develop a customized communication tool. We agree this type of tool would enable members to get the news they want and would help tell the organization’s story in a targeted way. We heard several times that the organization aspires to this type of communication; we just want to endorse and encourage.
• We encourage the CEO to consider centralizing communication staffing and marketing budgets into the Center for Marketing and Media. We appreciated the intention of having communication specialists in other departments, but we believe that centrally located staff could still be assigned to liaise with specific divisions/centers. Having them consolidated in CMM would enable more synergy and focus with less duplication of work.
• We encourage the organization to create opportunities for micro-volunteering at the county and state levels. Along with this comes a consideration of what an active member looks like. Not all active members need to be serving on boards or committees.
GOVERNANCE & ADMINISTRATION
Governance provides the strong framework for the organization now and in the future. It creates the policies and rules to help maintain the cohesiveness of an organization, and it formalizes processes across the organization. Having strong governance in place builds a solid foundation for any organization.
• We were pleased to hear that, over the past few years, the relationship between the membership organization and the insurance company has greatly improved. We think this is good news, and we applaud the collaboration that has emerged in recent years. We encourage continued work on the parent company/insurance company relationship, so the organization sees itself as a farm organization first, with an excellent member benefit through insurance, rather than as an insurance company with a farmer organization attached. Recognizing how important this is, we have several additional ideas for consideration.
- Identify a concise way to convey the total contribution of the insurance companies to the membership organization.
- Continue to highlight, at every opportunity, the overall value of the relationship. It is possible county leaders and regular members do not understand the significant investments the insurance company makes to the parent organization.
- We liked hearing about the joint tagline “Provide and Protect,” and how each organization exemplified one of the words. We wonder whether there is a possibility for the organizations to adopt a joint mission statement.
- As mentioned above, we thought the charitable fund has great potential for continued expansion and collaboration.
- Continue to emphasize the synergy between the two organizations in onboarding, perhaps moving the president’s message to the insurance hires later in their onboarding process when they might be more receptive to information about the organization.
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