Maximize Your MPI Benefits - There’s a Community Waiting for You

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Maximize Your MPI Benefits - There’s a Community Waiting for You

By Heidi Longton, CMP, CMM | Jul 27, 2020

MPI members, have you found your community? It is a rhetorical question. I already know the answer for many of you. MPI has an engaged global membership of 17,000. Our eight formal communities have 2,100 opted-in members connected on the MyMPI forum's community boards. More than 12 percent of us are maximizing our MPI membership benefits. Won’t you join us?

Let’s Grow Our Specialty Communities

Successful member organizations provide a platform to connect their members. In January 2019, MPI launched a community initiative that included eight specialties. Those communities include Association Planners, Administrative Planners, Experiential Marketers & Designers, Financial & Insurance Planners, Independent & Small Business Owners, Meeting Executives, MPI-MD Medical Meeting & Healthcare Planners and MPI Women.

MPI Association Planners community: Connect with peers and navigate challenges.

This enhancement to MPI membership allows me to connect with planners across the globe that do what I do every day. With more than 200 association planners in my specialty community forum, I have a network of resources and best practices at my disposal. This has never been more important in my career than now, as we have navigated from cancelling events and negotiating our way out of contracts to offering our members content through virtual means. Find your community and join today. If you’re already a MPI member, opt into a community forum on MyMPI. If you do not see one that works for you, you can create a member-owned and operated one as others have done.

Community Programming

On July 29 from 11 a.m.-2:15 p.m. CDT, the MPI Academy is offering an All Communities Summit. This complimentary event was designed based on the most requested topics from the eight communities. Register now for the three-topic session (and three clock hours) of strategic planning content brought to us by Fleming’s, Visit Seattle, Experience Scottsdale, Happily and Hilton.

Looking for a Leadership Opportunity

If you have been a chapter leader and are looking to advance (and even if you have not), you might consider applying for the advisory board in the community of your specialty. Applications to serve on the boards open in September (bookmark this page). As a founding member of the Association Planners Advisory Board, I can tell you firsthand that belonging to this niche community is as rewarding and beneficial as global membership and chapter leadership.

MPI has the largest and most diverse community of event professionals in the world. Find your community today.

Photo by Daniel Öberg on Unsplash

 

Author

Heidi Longton
Heidi Longton, CMP, CMM

Heidi Longton, CMP, CMM is convention and meeting manager for the New York State School Boards Association, a member of MPI Upstate New York Chapter and a founding member of the Association Planners Advisory Board, as well as an MPI Facilitator and Accredited Trainer.