The 2016 Excellence in Chapter Sustainability Award Winner was Winnipeg Chapter. 

 

Tell me about your initiative.
 

Kevin Haines, President, IIBA^® Winnipeg Chapter is passionate about thinking long-term. The Chapter’s strategy for achieving sustainability involved 4 key elements - redefining Chapter execution, executing sponsorship, communicating certification value and community thinking. 
 

We set an ambitious target to grow sponsorship, increase community awareness, formalize budgeting and planning, improve governance bylaws and deliver great events.
 

In 2016, the Chapter’s Treasurer built our first-ever budget based on the processes and mission of the Board. Our break-even budget initiative was a success and 2016 brought a healthy, stable balance to support future years’ activities. 

How did you define your operational planning strategy?
 

Under the formal direction from our Chapter President on key goals, the Chapter had a clear definition on what we would focus on and identified challenges early and were prepared to respond. To help us get here, we took an honest assessment of where we were and where we wanted to go.
 

The Chapter implemented a formal budgeting framework and refined our Bylaws with updated election policies as well as role descriptions and term lengths. The Chapter also defined a robust succession plan to ensure continuity and to better reflect the evolving nature of our Chapter.
 

As the Chapter became more operational and continued to develop its model, it allowed Winnipeg Chapter to create more strategic operations. We successfully transitioned to having an AGM every 2 years to every year and moved to a 50% annual board transition as opposed to 100% every 2 years. The Winnipeg Chapter ratified and updated our by-laws with input from leadership of other Chapters. The Chapter also successfully migrated to the new IIBA Chapter website platform and increased certified Members by 41%.  
 

What are some of the activities you have launched?
 

Focusing on increasing sponsorship we were able to host our largest event in our Chapter history. Our Job Fair and Professional Networking event provided great value to our Members.
 

Winnipeg Chapter launched a job fair component to increase the value of our typical networking events and after complying with strict anti-spam legislation, we managed to rebuild our mailing list and expanded it marginally.  
 

How do you measure your success?
 

The steps taken this year (in 2016) strengthened the governance, operations, and sustainability of our Chapter and will position us to take advantage of significant growth opportunities in the years ahead.
 

2016 was a year of firsts for our Chapter, including our first job fair and networking fair, first annual AGM and our first broadcast event on periscope. Our mission to grow in our community resulted in doubling our Chapter Memberships.
 

How did you engage your community?
 

We held a number of community events and sought input from other Chapters and collaborated with 6 other Chapters to increase opportunities. 
 

Our Chapter focused on developing relationships with the community, including educational institutions, practitioners, sponsors and employers. We are continuing to execute our business plan to drive funding to offer more opportunities for our Members to achieve certifications, develop their network, educate themselves and evolve with the changing global workplace.  
 

This year we saw 31% new certified Members and a 400% increase in study group participants. Continuing to hold certified Member events, we built an infrastructure to move towards a committee model that focuses on strategy and formalized long term planning. 
 

What was the key to achieving leadership excellence?
 

The Board has met challenges head on and we hope the work not only moves us forward but cements a base for future Boards to continue to use and build on top of.  

 

Congratulations to the Winnipeg Chapter. Next month, we profile Italy Chapter, 2016 Professional Development Chapter Award Winner.