Celebrating membership success

When it comes to educating, persuading or simply connecting with an audience in a meaningful way, there’s no better way than storytelling.

Using storytelling to illustrate what the ADA and constituent and component societies do, how the tripartite makes a difference and why it is worthy of support was the kick-off to this year’s ADA Conference on Membership Recruitment and Retention.

Drawing 160 tripartite volunteers, staff members and guests to ADA Headquarters March 28-29 with the theme of “Celebrating Membership Successes,” the annual conference’s goal is to bring forth innovative ideas, strategies and solutions that can contribute to tripartite membership success.

“The Tripartite Grassroots Membership Initiative has been very successful since it started in 2001,” Dr. Pamela Z. Baldassarre, chair of the ADA Council on Membership, told the crowd.

“We have increased the number of actively licensed dentists by 12,014鈥攂oasting a market share of 71 percent,” said Dr. Baldassarre. “Our 2008 membership goal is to achieve a market share of 72 percent by adding 4,200 active licensed dentist members and through achieving a 2.8 percent active licensed dentist nonrenew rate.”

Emphasizing the importance of momentum at all three levels of the tripartite, Dr. Baldassarre spoke out on the continued success of the one-to-one outreach strategy necessary to achieving these goals.

Speaker Colin Rowan of A Goodman Communications led the audience in a session designed to elicit motivational tripartite success stories. Examples included a society that assisted a member who was overcoming drug addiction and another that helped a student prepare for his licensure exam. These are “stories that open the door so facts can be heard,” said Mr. Rowan, and are powerful testaments to the strengths and benefits of organized dentistry.

The theme of communicating powerful stories continued throughout the conference, and participants attended sessions that provided insight into dentists’ critical professional issues, key challenges to inclusivity and diversity in organized dentistry, and opportunities to energize and educate volunteers. An open forum and table topic discussions encouraged TGMI team sharing and networking.