Welcome to February, chapter leaders! Here are a few membership-related resources that may come in handy.
Membership Open Office Hours:
Every other Thursday, from 3:30-4:30pm, ET and HQ staff is available to answer your membership, re:Members, and Bill Highway questions. If you don’t see the invite on your calendar, please email bryan@smps.org.
Membership Chapter Activity Notification Emails: We are working with re:Members on a custom solution where chapter presidents and chapter membership chairs would be notified by email within 24 hours of new and reinstating members joining. As of this writing, a scope of work has been signed, and we expect this work will be completed no later than the end of February.
As always, you have access to 11-chapter queries via smps.org (left hand margin > Start> Queries > Query Center > All Queries)
(Note: Your chapter demographics query lives there, too.)
Member Directory: If you haven’t noticed the new filters within Advance Search, please take a look. Additional filters have been made available:
2026 Membership Policy Changes and clarifications:
Membership Transfers
The transferring of SMPS membership, from one colleague to another, supports members whose work role has changed intentionally or beyond their control. As a result, the remaining time of the current membership may be passed on to another person/colleague at no additional cost.
Previously, SMPS was liberal in its transfer administration. However, due to select cases, and out of fairness for all, we revisited the policy and will still permit the transfer as described. However, effective January 2026, a firm may only transfer a membership once per calendar year and/or renewal cycle.
We should encourage members who elect to transfer the remaining time of their membership to do so with several factors in mind. First, we must make it clear to the recipient of the remaining time that a renewal payment, in some cases, as little as one month from receipt, may be due. Second, the recipient should be a person who is committed to leveraging membership.
To facilitate a transfer, please encourage the active/departing member to email membership@smps.org with the name, firm name, and email of the person who should receive the remaining membership time. In turn, HQ will conduct outreach and complete the transfer. For chapter leaders, the active member roster query denotes transferred-in members.
Refer a member
Active members are granted a three-month membership extension (a gesture of appreciation) for referring to a new member. To receive the extension, referred member must provide the name of the referrer within their smps.org account at the time of joining. Or, if the referred member does not provide the referrer’s name, the referrer may share the same details by emailing membership@smps.org. Either action, by the referred or referrer, must take place within 30 days of the new member joining. One may refer endless new members (thank you!) but will receive only one three-month extension per calendar/renewal cycle.
Group Membership discount
Does a local firm finally want to get on board with SMPS? Wonderful! We will offer firms who have a minimum of five new members, all joining at the same time, a 10% overall discount. If they have more than five, that 10% still applies, assuming criteria are met.
Once a firm (or chapter) identifies the prospects, please email the list of names/contacts to membership@smps.org. HQ will instruct on next steps.
For less than $500 per year, members have access to resources and a network committed to their individual and firm success. An investment that is well worth it!
SMPS HQ Comp Membership: Each year, chapters are afforded one free membership ($449 value) to provide to a new or renewing member. For the new member, with no previous history (or record), they would need to begin at smps.org, click Login in the upper right-hand corner, and “create an account.” Once they’ve done so, the chapter should inform HQ via membership@smps.org and we will apply the chapter comp membership accordingly.
Membership Referrals: If a current member wants to partner with HQ to recruit new members, we will extend our appreciation to the referrer with a three-month membership extension. This appreciation will be recognized within 30 days of the new member joining. Please encourage the new member/referred to provide the referrer’s details within their smps.org Account > Personal Info section.
Dropped (former) Member Survey Results: Below is a chart showing the results to a question from our dropped-member survey. You’ll see the top reason for not renewing is: I do not have the time to take advantage of membership. This information is quite valuable, and there may be some ways to address it at the chapter level. For example:
- Has your chapter considered offering programming on the same day(s) each month?
- Does your chapter offer an events calendar in advance so your members can plan?
- Have you considered programming organized by experience level, city, etc., and replicating it throughout?
- Do you invite local AECs to offer lunch and learn opportunities? The first 50 minutes could be educational and the remaining 10 could be used to pitch a company initiative.
These are just a few ways to teach and provide value to members in various ways.
Chapter Volunteer Preparedness Survey Results
At this point, chapter volunteers rate their preparedness to lead and fulfill responsibilities as 4.2 out of 5. If you would benefit from more training, please let us know. And it’s not too late to take the survey! Below are the results to one of the questions in the survey:
See you next time for the Membership Corner! Any questions? Reach out to SMPS Director of Membership Bryan Lipps at bryan@smps.org.
