Strategic Plan (PDF)Strategic Plan
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” —Peter Drucker
It is the CNBAM board’s hope that this strategic plan will serve as an outline for future boards to ensure the long term success and sustainability of the organization. Without a guiding plan, CNBAM is unlikely to end up where it wants to go. We also hope CNBAM, the board and its members will realize the value of this plan and its goals.
This plan is not meant to be the answer to all problems and situations CNBAM will encounter in the future. Rather , this plan is meant to be a guideline and framework for future boards to make decisions about activities and programs within the CNBAM organization. As such, this plan isn’t set in stone, rather a tool capable of changing with future boards.
In order to maximize the effectiveness of this plan and ensure future success, future boards must reevaluate this plan on a regular basis in order to maintain the momentum of the goals outlined. Strategic planning never ends; we hope this is just the beginning of the process for CNBAM and the board.
During the 2006 convention in Philadelphia, PA, the CNBAM membership authorized the CNBAM board (see appendix ofboard members) to meet in Chicago over the course of 4 days to take an in-depth look at the organization and develop a strategic plan for the future.
As CNBAM has grown over the years, with additional member offerings, it has become increasingly difficult for the board to accomplish all of its work during monthly conference calls and one board meeting held prior to the convention. This summer meeting allowed the board to focus on many of the organizational issues that have been left unaddressed over the years. It also gave the board a chance to discuss and reflect on the future of CNBAM through this strategic planning process.
CNBAM was started in the early 1970s by JoAnn Daughtee, the former Director of Student Publications at the University of Texas-Arlington. JoAnn realized the need for an organization dedicated to the concerns and issues relating to the business and advertising side of college newspapers. Over the past 30 plus years, CNBAM has grown to include over 125 member newspapers. Each spring, the organization holds its annual convention which includes a variety of speakers, sessions, as well as social events and recruiters from the newspaper industry. CNBAM also holds an annual advertising contest, hosts a private listserv for members and a variety of other services.
To provide students and advisors a cohesive and integrated environment to engage with business and advertising departments from colleges and university newspapers across the nation while being an advocate for issues facing college newspapers.
To provide resources which enhance the profitability and productivity within all member newspapers, while pioneering creative strategies to improve “best practices” in successful organizations.
College Newspaper Business & Advertising Managers, Inc.
1. The mission is a statement declaring the purpose of the organization.
2. The vision is a statement declaring a desirable future state of the organization.
The CNBAM list is one of CNBAM’s most popular member benefits. With nearly 300 members on the list, it provides instant communication between members as well as between the board and membership.
The CNBAM board has worked hard over the past several years to ensure the long term financial stability of CNBAM. While keeping program costs down and enhancing the convention with sponsors, the board has still been able to build the reserve fund to $48,511.
CNBAM’s smaller membership size has allowed member schools to build strong relationships with other schools.
Year after year , the convention continues to generate enormous amounts of positive feedback from members. It’s the number one member benefit.
The contest has grown steadily over the past few years and consistently has more than half of the membership participating.
Without the dedication of the nine board members who put in countless hours throughout the year , CNBAM and its many programs wouldn’t happen.
The newsletter could have more useful information and be a resource and tool for the board to communicate with the membership. It also needs to publish in a more consistent manner .
The current board sees the need to make changes within CNBAM and is ready to work to make the necessary changes to make the organization stronger .
CNBAM has the opportunity to educate students (and future leaders) on responsible and ethical business practices.
Build and strengthen relationships with other organizations and vendors. Building and strengthening relationships with other media organizations and vendors could lead to further opportunities for CNBAM members, schools and their students, while preventing duplication of offerings.
With the development of new media and the changing media landscape, there are countless opportunities for CNBAM to increase offerings to its members and develop new programs.
The various programs CNBAM produces take up countless hours for the nine board members. In order to continue to maintain the current programs and expand the offerings, CNBAM could explore a committee system to run some programs.
CNBAM needs to make sure it is constantly evaluating the convention and the convention offerings to offer the best education and value to the membership.
With a larger membership, CNBAM could potentially offer more programs and have a larger pool of potential committee and board members to draw from. However , this potential opportunity has to balanced with the strength of CNBAM’s small size.
Many smaller schools are unaware of CNBAM. CNBAM needs to do a better job of marketing its programs and member benefits to both potential members and vendors/other professional organizations.
The CNBAM board has not consistently communicated things well with the membership. Year to year promotion of the convention and other member benefits is sporadic and relies too heavily on the listserv, which not every school joins.
Being on the CNBAM board requires an extraordinary amount of time and as a result, recruiting responsible individuals to dedicate the time has become increasingly challenging. Also, as the convention and scope of CNBAM continues to grow it will become even more challenging.
Many members do not feel they gain value for their membership, beyond attendance at the convention. Those schools that can or do not come to the convention often feel slighted.
Member schools that do not attend the convention often do not renew year to year . More value needs to be provided outside the annual convention.
In order to secure the best locations/dates and rates for convention hotels, CNBAM must commit several years out without knowing future economic conditions. If CNBAM is unable to meet its food & beverage or room block minimums, the organization could face large penalties.
There are members within the organization that are resistant to change and like to keep things “like they’ve always been.”
Board recruitment is always a challenge. With a relatively small membership base to recruit potential board members from and the time commitment necessary to serve on the board, it is always a challenge to find and keep dedicated
board members.
Decline of newspaper readership/Convergence. The decline in newspaper readership and the development of convergence has the potential to adversely affect ad sales at member newspapers. This could affect both membership and convention attendance.
If CNBAM is unable to continue to attract sponsors to the convention, it will significantly weaken the quality of the convention and convention offerings. The added presence of sponsors at the convention has enabled CNBAM to increase the quality of keynote speakers, add additional social functions as well as provide the opportunity to meet sponsors that can provide products and services to members.
The 2006-07 CNBAM Executive Board spent many hours during their summer 2006 Board meeting discussing the goals of the organization and separating them into short-term goals and long-term goals.
These goals are meant to give the organization a focus for its financial resources, as well as the time spent by the Executive Board. A lot of work is done by each Executive Board member annually and we expect future Boards will continue this progress. A strategic plan is meant to add targets and focus for the organization. It cannot and should not capture every aspect of the organization.
This section presents short term and long term goals that future Boards will hopefully work to achieve. Many of the shortterm goals are currently in the works by the present Board. Progress should be assessed at least every two years.
The Board would like to see increased member involvement. This involvement could include being a Board member, serving on a Board committee, speaking at the annual convention in a session or roundtable, being a mentor to a new adviser or volunteering in other capacities to assist the work of the organization. This is a short-term and long-term goal of the organization as our membership hopefully grows.
The Board identified five new member benefits they would like to see added to the current offerings of the organization. The salary survey was administered in fall 2006 and results are planned for spring 2007. The Board discussed offering a new adviser program. The first offering will be a new adviser workshop on Wednesday of the convention in Portland. Seasoned advisers will lead the session. The Board also discussed offering a mentoring program. The Board will ask for seasoned adviser volunteers who would consult with and be on call for new CNBAM advisers in their first two years on
the job. The Board is looking into software that would allow us to archive our listserv discussions for members to refer back to discussions they missed or have questions about later . The board also discussed introducing a rival school sales contest or a region vs. region contest. This offers another opportunity for students to earn recognition and hopefully thenmeet the competition at the convention.
CNBAM needs to aggressively market the organization to college newspapers across the country as well as to companies and commercial newspaper organizations. We also need to tell the story of college newspapers and promote the college newspaper industry. CNBAM might look at adding a marketing staff to work with the VP/Membership to recruit new members.
The VP/Membership is updating the Advertising Sales Resource Guide, previously produced in 2003, for distribution at the Portland 2007 convention. The guide “is designed to serve as a training resource that will support your newspaper’s efforts to build professionalism and success.” It should be a goal of the Board to update this Guide every 3-5 years
The Board is looking into insurance policies. Every hotel contract requires general liability coverage for convention organizers. The Board needs to investigate liability coverage as well as director and officer insurance.
The Board would like to see the organization continue to expand its professional partnerships and is looking at additional ways to offer value to these partners. This is a short-term and long-term goal for the organization as potential partner companies are ever changing.
Maintaining fiscal stability is an important goal for the organization. We must continue to balance costs to our members for dues and convention fees against the organization’s costs to provide the high-quality member benefits we want to offer . We must watch our reserves to make sure we are able to cover any great loss, such as a low convention turnout that does not meet our minimum guarantees. This is a short-term and long-term goal, as we cannot operate without financial stability.
The Board sees a need to continue to improve the communication between the Board and the membership. This year the Board voted to purchase template software to improve the look and continuity of the newsletter . The Board also set deadlines in advance to produce five newsletters this year . The VP/Public Relations has worked with College Publisher , our website host, to revamp the look of the CNBAM website with a launch of the new site in fall 2006. The VP/Public Relations has then continued to offer regular updates to the site, so it remains current. The Board is working on communicating news about the convention via the listserv, website, newsletter and a convention brochure that will be mailed out in January.
The Board reviewed the contest rules and discussed making the contest more relevant. Some categories were combined or eliminated while a new category for Ad Designer of the Year was added. The VP/Awards worked on flyers to make the contest easier to enter and sent out a postcard as a reminder to enter the contest.
The board should review the convention offerings regularly to ensure the programming is fresh and relevant. The convention is a great place to connect members from the various regions of the country. The board should consider mixers or dinners for eight that would help members meet each other .
The Board needs to review current sponsor fees and compare them with the benefits the sponsor is receiving, as well as with the current sponsor costs for other similar conventions. Sponsors are continuing to ask for more benefits for their money, so the Board needs to evaluate what they are willing to offer to sponsors at different donor levels. Sponsor money allows CNBAM to pay for higher caliber keynote speakers at the convention, keep registration fees low and offer more benefits for members.
The 2006-07 Executive Board selected seven long-term goals to be worked five to ten years from now. Increasing member involvement, expanding professional partnerships and maintaining fiscal stability are all carried over from the short term goals, as the Board feels they are needed to maintain the core operations of the organization. Four additional long term goals include:
Increasing the membership of CNBAM. For the last few years CNBAM has maintained 125-130 member schools. Some schools renew based on if the convention is in their area of the country. The Board would like to see the CNBAM offerings such that schools want to be a member every year regardless of whether they can attend the convention. The Board set target membership goals of 150 member schools by 2012 and 175 member schools by 2017.
Members have asked about offering regional conventions/meetings. Research would need to be done to determine the financial needs for holding such conventions/meetings. There is also concern that regional conventions/meetings would reduce the attendance at the national convention making it harder to secure the lower hotel rates we receive for our size convention.
The Board would like to see the organization work on developing a corporate brand/identity with a new logo, newsletter format, letterhead, etc. The new website and newsletter are a start, but CNBAM needs to look at a consistent image to help it be more recognizable by current and potential members and vendors. There could be a student design contest to come up with this corporate identity.
The goals that the board has outlined for the organization may be beyond the scope of a voluntary board. At some time in the future, CNBAM may need to look at finding a headquarters institution with an office and executive director for the organization to ensure that these member benefits can be appropriately executed. Another consideration would be to outsource some of the work and pay a small stipend to ensure things get done in the desired time frame.
The Board recommends that a membership survey be conducted every two years, with the next survey in 2008. This survey should address previous goals to ensure those goals are being achieved and help set priorities for future boards. The Board recommends that the Board have a summer meeting every two years, in the odd years in which a new president is elected. The next summer Board meeting would occur in summer 2007. The meeting should be used to evaluate the work of the previous board, set goals for the next two years and continue to review and update the member offerings of the organization to keep them current and relevant.
The Board recommends that a committee be appointed every five years to review the bylaws. The next committee would convene in 2011.
The Board recommends that the awards/contest be reviewed every two years during the summer Board meetings to assure they are meeting the needs of the membership and remain current and relevant.
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