Ideas for Grass Root Campaign

The following are ideas for grass root campaign conducted by various chapters to help spread the word about CPCU. These are things which might be replicated in Central Illinois. Other ideas are welcome too. Please submit to Jim Jones-Visibility Chair at james.jones@ilstu.edu

Thanks.

Atlanta

The Atlanta Chapter is working on ideas to meet the challenge of this goal, and wanted to submit them to you for opinion.  First, we have scheduled a black-tie social event for February that all members are invited to, as well as members of other associations, i.e. RIMS, and a number of key employers of CPCUs in the Atlanta area.  The purpose of the Gala is to highlight the activities the Chapter is planning with regard to education, and also acts as a fund raiser for these goals, extending over the rest of this fiscal year and into the next one.

The second visibility idea is to prepare and distribute a list of accomplishments made during 2004 by Atlanta CPCUs and the Chapter.  This list of deeds will show the commitment of individual members supporting a variety of activities, our charity work, educational accomplishments, volunteer, and other related endeavors.  It will be circulated to all Chapter members and to all the companies listed in our P/C company list.  We will take the opportunity to use it to show the employers how valuable their CPCU membership is outside the office where they work, and encourage them to continue to support their employees and the work of CPCU.

Los Angeles

The Los Angeles chapter has 2 new visibility ideas for you.

   Prepare a calendar with the CPCU logo on it and give it to our chapter

   members to hang in their offices or cubes.  Have a small one to give as

   Christmas gifts.

   Give a CPCU T-shirt as a door prize at our monthly CPCU meetings.  Also

   hand them out to wear during our good works projects in the community.

I am a director with the Colorado Chapter. For our grass roots campaign this year, we would like to continue last year’s campaign. We are currently continuing to partner with local colleges, universities, bar associations and ancillary businesses such as employment firms.

Colorado

This campaign continues to offers us the greatest chance to publicize the CPCU designation in Colorado with university students and anyone interested in working in businesses that service the insurance industry.

Presque Isle

- The Presque Isle Chapter has established a Grass Roots Committee, chaired by our immediate past president, Mark Rakauskas.  Mark recently participated in a job fair at a local high school, providing information on careers within the insurance industry.  Mark made available to the students the CPCU brochure "There is a Career for You in Insurance."  Our Visibility Chair, Penny Spacht, is exploring the possibility of our Chapter's

participation in another local high school's career   program.

      - Chapter President, Karen Miller, taught a class at Tri-State Technical School on October 30, 2003 about customer service in the insurance industry, with a focus on the importance of education and an explanation of the requirements for and significance of the CPCU designation.

      -Our Chapter began having Chapter meetings in December a few years ago as a social gathering for our members during the holidays.  We also decided that our December Chapter meetings could be an occasion of sharing not only friendship with our members but also sharing our generosity with our community.  This year our Good Works Committee co-chairs, Catherine Shuhart and candidate member Kim Caravaglia (we think it is important to get our candidate members involved as soon as possible!) selected the "House of Healing" as the sponsored charity.  Sister Stephanie spoke to our Chapter about the mission of the House of Healing in reuniting non-violent female parolees with their children in a safe and supportive environment.  Our individual members contributed towels and bed linens, grocery store and discount store gift cards, and money to the House of Healing.  We are submitting an article for publication in the local paper.

      -At I-Day this year, the Presque Chapter sponsored the attendance of six students who have taken risk management courses at the local colleges. Erie has several colleges in our area - including Gannon University, Mercyhurst College, and Penn State-Behrend.  Our New Designee Task Force Chair, Dave Smith, teaches classes at Gannon in risk management so he asked students if they would care to participate in I-Day.  Also, Dave invited Dr. Chuanhou Yang, a Professor of risk management at Gannon, to attend our September Chapter meeting, which he did.  We have found the academic community to be very receptive to interfacing with our Chapter.

      -Our Chapter's webmaster, Tom Krill, has done an excellent job of creating our Chapter's website - with the help of national.  We have combined our internet presence with our traditionally published Chaptergram

- so that the important events of our Chapter are available on our website - this way no one has to hunt for a piece of paper or a deleted email - the information is available through links from our website - we have some great pictures out there, too!  When we want to make sure our members are getting current info, we send an email to remind them to check the website!  What a great resource and easy touchstone for our Chapter news with links to the national Society website.

Alamo

1.    Monthly gift certificate to Starbucks for the chapter member who has most promoted the designation and Society.

2.    Annual recognition trip to NLI for the chapter member who has most promoted the designation and Society throughout the year.

            - Because of cost, this could be put on a national basis.

3.    Post the monthly "winner's" business profile alongside a chapter advertisement in a local publication - recognition of the member as well as promoting CPCU.

Oregon

Jeff (a new designee)  had some ideas for spread the word - see below.

Also, our chapter did reach thousands for the Grass Roots effort by being a team of pledge takers for Oregon Public Broadcasting.  We were all on TV taking calls and wearing our CPCU tee shirts.  The emcee's also mentioned

our organization.   We invited many non-CPCU's to I-Day (attorneys,

Property owners, contractors, etc for Malecki's Additional Insured talk, vendors). Part of our luncheon speeches included the three main strategic goals for Circle of Excellence.  In that way, many non-insurance individuals got a better understanding of what it means to be a CPCU.

Rhode Island

Here are a few ideas that we have done that are extremely popular and can be shared with other chapters.

Along with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), we sponsored and coordinated this event.  Seventeen local high schools concoct a non alcoholic cocktail (called mocktail) and submit it for grants to support a safe prom and graduation season.  The party itself is the highlight of the event.  Each high school sets up a booth, they usually have a catchy name for their drunk and they decorate their booth accordingly (e.g. “Abstinence on the Beach” “Kings enchanted Dream”).   The chapter, insurance companies, high school youths, friends, families, and the general public are welcome.   The winners are selected by “celebrity” judges and the event is televised.   Each booth usually includes a photo of a local youth (usually someone they know) that was killed by a drunk driver.  All recipes for the mocktails are available. 

A similar Event is “Save the Night”.  High School students submit original poetry writings to promote a safe prom and graduation evening.    The chapter and general public is invited to listen to the poetry readings.  Grants are offered to the winners for their schools to host a safe post grad or prom event.   $5,000. in total was awarded to the top 3 schools.