Need: After deciding on standards for its new certification program, the association needed to develop guidelines and an application form. The application packet needed to be simple and easily administered.

Solution: I worked with the volunteer committee to document certification requirements, then write the application instructions and develop a one-page application form.

Results: Fifty-eight graduates were certified within the first year of the new program.

Continue reading to see the original information sheet and application form.

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In late December/early January, I converted the web site for my major association client from FrontPage to Drupal. I’ve used FrontPage since Version 1, back in 1996 when Microsoft acquired FrontPage developer Vermeer Technologies Inc. When Microsoft announced earlier this year that it was discontinuing support for FrontPage, I decided that it was time to make a full conversion to web-based, open-source content management systems, or CMSs. So I’ve been experimenting with WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Here’s what I have decided:

• WordPress is perfect for smaller sites, such as this blog. But it does not provide the depth or flexibility that we need for a full-featured association web site.
• Joomla has many outstanding features, it’s very easy to get up and running, and there is a large support community. We used it for the “members only” section of the NOHS web site for several months. Unfortunately, it does not allow the “fine grained” user accessibility control that we need.
• Drupal also has many outstanding features, but it has been harder to learn and the support community is smaller. However, two features have made it the CMS we will be using. First, Drupal allows better control over user rights. Second, authors and editors do not need to log into a separate administrative area in order to add or edit content. This is very beneficial when relying on volunteers to assist in content administration.

We will also be integrating CiviCRM, an open-source constitutent management system that includes a membership database. Hosting the membership database online will allow better integration with our online membership application, better (and more timely) reporting to our board of directors, and less dependence on an individual, stand-along database created in Access.

I’m writing this post to document the process of converting the web site. I have been laying the foundation for several weeks, so our goal is to complete the conversion in one week.

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The National Organization for Human Services is my primary association client, and this year, the NOHS annual conference enjoyed an outstanding success: Income for the 2006 conference increased 63 percent over 2005. Official registration increased from 126 in 2005 to 196 this year.

Hosted by the San Diego campus of Springfield College, the 2006 conference was held Nov. 1-4 at the Bahia Resort on Mission Bay. The conference chair had a clear vision for the conference, and I worked closely with her to make the vision a reality. Together, we defined speaker expectations, which I translated into an online proposal submission form that brought in a record number of proposals.

I also worked with the conference chair and the NOHS vice president for conferences to develop a realistic conference budget. This allowed us to set appropriate registration fees that would guarantee financial success without a significant increase for attendees. One strategy was setting an “early bird” registration fee and deadlines that prompted earlier registrations.

Thanks to the success of the 2006 conference, NOHS is positioned to enter the new year in better financial condition than it began this year.

The Link is the NOHS quarterly newsletter, distribued by mail to all members and posted online. These newsletter sample pages are typical of the elegant two-color layout style, incorporating graphics and photographs to create interesting, lively pages.
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Since March 2004, I have provided complete management services to the National Organization for Human Services. This includes writing, design and maintenance of the NOHS web site at http://www.nationalhumanservices.org. (Update: In March 2007, my contract with NOHS ended. I no longer maintain the association’s web site.)
Highlights of this work includes:

• Organizational logo design: NOHS changed their name in October 2005, requiring the design of new logo. This was the design selected from 12 concepts that I presented to the board.

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