INA’s Immediate Past President, Kathy Webb, provided INA members the following update at the INA’s annual meeting in Cancun, Mexico, Thursday April 23, 2015.
INA President’s Report 2015
The all volunteer International Nanny Association Board of Directors has had a very busy and productive 30th year. I offer my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of my fellow board members and committee members for their important contributions to the INA board.
Over its 30 year history, the INA Board has struggled with both Executive continuity and Executive transitions. The office of President has at times felt like a ‘life sentence’ to the office holders, and changes in the office of the President have been at times difficult, and definitely not always planned. The office of President is very time consuming, as the executive is responsible to govern both the board and the Association, to provide a leadership plan and direction and advance the mission of the INA. I know when I assumed the role of co-President with Cortney Gibson I mentally asked “Who me?” and took a big gulp. In my 22 years as an INA member, a half dozen years of committee work and 3 years board service, I saw firsthand the challenges our prior executives so gracefully and ably faced. I thought I knew what I was getting into, and I knew I would only be serving in this role for a limited time. I challenged the board to rethink our Executive Board Structure, and to establish a clear roadmap for executive transition to both insure continuity and seamless transitions.
After much discussion and research into board structure of similar sized organizations, the INA Board of Directors voted to shake up the Executive Board Structure in the Fall of 2014. The new office of Immediate Past President was created, and the duties of the 1st Vice President were restructured to include the role of President Elect. In short, when the board voted for its executive board members, it was understood that the 1st Vice President was agreeing to serve, in the future, as President for at least a one year term. Upon retirement from the role of President, the outgoing President understands that s/he is agreeing to remain on the executive board in the role of advice and counsel to the President and entire board for a further year. I am assuming the role of Immediate Past President as the new INA board is installed at conference, Cortney Gibson will assume the position of President, and Marcia Hall will assume the position of 1st Vice President. This is a grand experiment, one that we hope provides a path for other INA members interested in board service to ascend to and depart from the role of President in an orderly, planned manner. I encourage everyone here at conference, and our members who are not in attendance, to consider board service. If you want to know more about what that entails, stop any board member here at conference, or reach out to me directly to have your questions answered. We are YOUR board, and we welcome you to take a turn at leadership and service.
We made some significant achievements in the last year that I would like to share with you today. Remember, while I may be the one standing up here and sharing, there is no “I” in TEAM – this has truly been a group achievement of the entire board and committee members.
INA membership remains stable and as our Treasurer will report on good financial footing. In the last two years agency membership has increased by 30%, while there has been a decrease in individual membership. Given that there are 800,000+ working nannies in the US alone, we certainly should have more professional nannies as INA members!
Angela Riggs, the chair of the Education Committee, and her team undertook and completed the monumental task of revising and testing both the INA Basic Skills Assessment and INA Credential Exam. Angela will be sharing more about this with you. I encourage all of the members who are principals of nanny referral agencies to relook the INA Basic Skills Assessment – an important early screening tool to use with your candidates, and a market place discriminator for INA member agencies in a marketplace where anyone with a website and phone number can purport to be a nanny agency, a marketplace where the barriers to entry are relatively insignificant, and one where the families who are considering your services require education and persuasion to work with you, rather than an online listing service or your competitors down the road. The INA Basic Skills Assessment can be a powerful discriminator, one that puts the cache of the International Nanny Association, our code of ethics and recommended practices behind your marketing and fulfillment efforts.
I am delighted to report that the INA Weekly Brief – the INA’s blog – was published every week in the past year! This is an important tool to share the INA’s mission, to educate our members and to educate the public. The INA has been blessed to have received support from our members who have shared their time and talent to provide us articles to share with you. Tracey Chipps, Ken Myers, Amanda Schultz, Louise Dunham, Angela Riggs, Stacie Steelman, Kim Winblood, Kathy DuPuy, Kellie Geres, Glenn Scott Greenhouse, and all members who made contributions – thank you! I encourage you too to consider submitting an article for consideration.
The INA has hired the services of Socially Delivered to manage the INA’s social media outreach. INA’s Facebook page followers have increased by 35% in the last year! Mentor Monday was instituted – a weekly “Ask a Nanny Mentor” feature of our Facebook page that addresses common challenges working nannies find in their world.
The INA recently published the 2014 INA Salary and Benefits Survey. We increased respondents by 40%, and for the first time had more than 1000 working nannies and newborn care specialists worldwide participate in this survey. The INA also participated with our colleagues in the APNA on the first ever nanny agency benchmarking study. If you have not seen these two important industry reports I encourage you to do so.
You may have noticed the videographers at our 2014 conference in Los Angeles and here in Cancun. The INA produced 5 short videos based on conference footage in 2014, and we hope to continue increasing our video library in the coming year. You can find these videos linked to the INA Facebook page.
Lastly, the INA has been challenged with its association management software platform. Suffice to say there have been many times when our Office Manager, Carrie Ann and the board have wanted to simply pull the plug. A change is needed, and if ANYONE in the INA wants to actively participate in the research and vetting of commercial off-the-shelf association management software in the coming months, please seek out myself or Carrie Ann. A firm software foundation is imperative if we are to grow our membership and advance the INA mission, supporting excellence in in-home childcare.
Thank you all for your attention, and I speak for the entire board when I encourage you to think hard about what role you can play in the success of your International Nanny Association.