PR pros thrive and learn @FortWorthPRSA

This is cross-posted on the Next Communications blog:

I am a member of and hold a board position with the Greater Ft. Worth Chapter of PRSA. At the January Board meeting, we were given the local results from the PRSA's all-chapters survey that was launched in March of last year.

According to William Murray, the President and COO of PRSA, the purpose of the survey was "to identify, in a methodical, statistically sound way, which Chapters represent best practices in the area of service delivery, and who can serve as models for other Chapters to learn from and emulate."

The Results
Here are some of the interesting and in some cases, surprising, data points from the Ft. Worth chapter report:

Chapter Satisfaction was listed at 82% compared to a 53% all chapter average and 58% peer chapter by size.

Quotes from the open-ended questions included Positives

• “Good for networking.”
• “Necessary.”
• “Can't think of anything that it is not doing. Very busy bunch.”

...and Negatives

• “We need more of the higher level training experiences like they provide at PRSA New York.”
• “Sometimes not substantive.”
• “The same basic formula for monthly meetings gets boring after awhile.”

 The respondents wanted to see our chapter Do More

• Programs delivered by thought-leaders
• Ethics programs
• Newsletter

...Do Less

• Award programs
• Mentoring programs (This was actually surprising since mentoring should be a fundamental aspect in my opinion.)
  
• e-Group or listserv

...and Maintain

• Website (This pleased me because I manage much of the online content for the chapter.)
  
• Social media (such as chapter blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook group)
• Volunteer opportunities

Chapter events were rated very well including highest remarks in the categories of Professional, Beneficial, Relevant, a Learning Experience, and Welcoming. (I attribute the last one as being in part because we are in Ft. Worth.)

There are some great take-aways for the chapter leadership and members to assess moving forward. I really appreciate PRSA National taking this on for the chapters as a way to help us grow as an organization and on our local levels. As a PR professional, I think it is a great investment of my time to be a member of PRSA and look forward to another enlightening and challenging year.

If you have attended any of the Ft. Worth PRSA chapter events/meetings (or other PRSA chapter meetings) I would appreciate any feedback on your experiences. As always, the comments are yours.