Promoting our Profession is our Responsibility
By Cecilia Sepp, CAE, ACNP
A few days ago, I shared this post on my LinkedIn account:
“Earlier today I saw yet another post from an association management professional stating, ‘it's so hard to explain what we do.’ This is another one of those tired pieces of conventional wisdom that just isn't so. It's very easy to explain what we do: As nonprofit management professionals, we practice a management subspecialty focusing on 501c organizations. We are experienced professionals supporting organizations that make the world a better place through service to members and society. If you are trying to explain your daily tasks to someone, you are not answering their question.”
Then the support for the tired conventional wisdom began with comments like “but no one knows what a 501c is;” and “nonprofit makes people think of direct service groups like charities or NGOs.” Well, whose fault is that when the public doesn’t know what a profession does?
When I pushed back a bit and said use examples, one reply was “but not everyone can relate to your examples because of their experience and background . . .”
Are we actually trying to keep people from understanding our profession? It certainly seems like it at times because whenever I say “we should” I get a lot of “we can’t” type replies.
Fortunately, as the discussion continued briefly in the comments, others shared their replies and examples. The examples shared were accessible and include gym memberships, AAA, and AARP. One commenter noted that he was presenting at a high school career day and asked all the students in advance what their parents did. He then tied the work to associations they might belong to and it created the connection between work and associations.
We need to take control of educating people about our profession. It is up to us to share with the world why our profession matters and the support we provide. We need to stop finding reasons why we can't and find ways we CAN. You can always find an example that the person you are talking to can relate to about the work we do in our profession.
ASAE is over 100 years old and yet we still say that “no one knows what we do.” I’m not blaming ASAE for this situation, but if the oldest national association for our profession hasn’t made an impact, could it be because we, the members, are not supporting that outreach?
Promoting our profession is another reason why the Certified Association Executive (CAE) designation is crucial to our future. Even if you don’t have it or want it, you can use it as a way to demonstrate the necessary expertise to be a member of our profession. There are other designations too like the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) designation. I have both the CNP and the CAE and these are complementary because we share a common body of knowledge. The knowledge we need to be successful is an excellent talking point when communicating about what we do.
When it comes to making sure there is an understanding of what we do, let’s focus on the why we do it. It’s important for 501c organizations to have the experienced staff needed to support their success because they make the world a better place. When we do our job well, we help make the world a better place too.
That’s something worth promoting. And it’s something worth educating people about so that they understand. We can’t say they don’t know something if we won’t share that knowledge.
