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From The MPI President

Your well-being is paramount to MPI’s success

One of the most important roles of any community is supporting and uplifting its members, especially during difficult times.

By Paul Van Deventer

One of the most important roles of any community is supporting and uplifting its members, especially during difficult times.

In service to MPI’s goal of ensuring a safe, more inclusive community, I’m proud to announce the launch of HEAR—Help, Equity, Action, Resolution (Page 24)—an anonymous, third-party-led tool by which individuals can report discriminatory or unethical behavior, bullying and other unprofessional conduct. A reimagination of what was formerly known as MPI Cares, HEAR is a direct result of feedback from concerned community members and results in MPI being better equipped to handle such challenges.

While the MPI community is built around business and professional growth, the expansive relationships and bonds developed in this industry are often deep and lifelong. It’s impossible to experience this people-centric community daily and only be impacted by the business side of the equation.

More existential scenarios also regularly impact our globally distributed community, such as terrorist attacks, civil strife and natural disasters stretching across the globe, at an unfortunately increasing rate. Following each such occurrence, we inevitably hear from concerned members seeking assistance or requesting guidance on how they can best help those impacted.

All of this has propelled us, in recent years, to create the following more standardized approach to communications and support for impacted MPI members and chapters.

  • Communicate with local chapter leadership to understand messaging they would like MPI to share with our greater community, including opportunities to support local organizations with which the chapter may already be working.
  • Engage with destination marketing organizations in the affected area to understand how we can support the local hospitality industry, including amplifying messages regarding disaster response and promoting the destinations once they are comfortable welcoming visitors again.
  • Provide Natural Disaster and Hardship Relief for membership dues and professional development support for impacted members, including sixmonth and one-year membership dues waivers.
  • Provide grants through the MPI Foundation to chapters that have experienced financial hardship and are struggling through the recovery.

You may have benefited from similar assistance in years past—perhaps the greatest such instance being when in-person meetings and events were shuttered by the pandemic. Throughout that period, MPI and the MPI Foundation provided $1.8 million in assistance to more than 3,800 individuals and 63 chapters across our global community.

Even though we are not a disaster relief organization, and the amount and type of assistance we’re able to offer is limited, we take seriously the well-being of our community which is, after all, the very heart of MPI.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Van Deventer

Paul Van Deventer joined the MPI Global Team in April 2013 as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). In this role, he leads the strategic direction of both MPI’s global association and the MPI Foundation, with responsibility for managing its global staff, operating budget, membership programs and community services.

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