For LIS associations

One of the best ways professional associations can offer additional value to members is to provide career information, resources, and coaching to support their career goals. Yet associations and their divisions, chapters, and other special interest groups often don’t have the expertise or bandwidth to be able to provide this valuable benefit.

I help you offer your members the career development resources they need. How? By providing a robust suite of content, resources, and online tutorials designed to help LIS practitioners create their most rewarding and resilient careers.

In addition to helping your members succeed in their careers and substantially raising the value of your association for them, providing outstanding career content can also increase your organization’s potential new revenue opportunities. Consider, for example, using webinars, workshops, and/or “behind-the wall” online career content to drive additional sponsorship revenues.

Tools for career success
I’ve provided all of the following options to help LIS students, new professionals and practitioners find career success, and believe they can be of great value to your members, as well.

Webcasts and workshops
Webcasts enable you to provide LIS career expertise to a large number of members both synchronously (for those whose schedules enable them to attend and ask questions) and asynchronously, as an archived resource they can access when time permits. In addition, because webcasts can be archived for 12 months on your site, they can be used to help you recruit new members and/or convert student members on a strategic basis.

In-person half- or all-day workshops can be especially effective for deeper-dive topics that lend themselves to group interaction. This type of high-engagement, actionable-outcomes session works well for in-person conference or chapter meetings, but can also be videotaped and archived for 12 months other members can access as time/opportunity permits. This approach enables videotaped workshops to similarly be used for recruiting and student-member conversion efforts.

Note: webinar topics can be expanded with additional content and interactivity into workshops, while workshop topics can be “slimmed down” to fit a webinar format.

Career content
Offer your members a variety of media resources to help expand their career “core competencies.” For example:

• Monthly career-focused podcast interviews with expert/interesting members
• Weekly blog posts on relevant career topics, with an actionable take-away
• Monthly LIS Career Notes newsletter with career strategies/tips, action items, and a description of a best-in-class career resource (stand-alone or incorporated into your own program newsletter)
•  “Career Library,” a suite of 25 “how-to” (and why-to) articles about careers, job-hunting strategies, career outreach, and more; new article added monthly

Custom content
Many associations benefit by providing custom-developed content tailored specifically for their members.

This might include website content; deep-dive, detailed career guides or downloadable e-books on a career-related topic of interest or benefit to members, among other resources. These materials can also be used as incentives for potential members to learn more about your association.

Additional benefits for your association
All content can be “white labeled,” which means that it will have your association’s logo and name on it unless you specifically want my name associated with a given resource or activity.

This approach also lends itself to sponsorship opportunities, which can not only offset costs but also provide potential additional revenue.

Career content can easily be multi-purposed to support recruitment of new members (especially students) and can also be used as a high-value benefit for outreach efforts to lapsed members.

Having worked in volunteer roles with LIS professional associations at both the national and local levels, I understand and am comfortable working within your fiscal and decision-making structure.

I can help you support your members’ career success