by NAPO President, Ellen Delap
At the NAPO2018 Annual Retreat I had the honor of sharing the “State of NAPO” address. During the 2017-2018 year #TeamNAPO has reached and exceeded many milestones. Together we have accomplished so much! This year NAPO unveiled the new logo to reflect the evolution of the industry and the association. Thank you to our Logo Task Force in creating a dynamic new image that represents NAPO and its integrated areas and professionalism. While the DBA name change and new logo have begun a new era for NAPO I wanted to share the many successes NAPO has achieved during the past year. “NAPO by the Numbers” shows the breadth and depth of NAPOs initiatives and its achievements.
This year NAPO has enjoyed media coverage by eight (8) of the most respected national media leaders. Requests have flooded the HQ office from:
Wall Street Journal
CBS Sunday Morning
Huffington Post
New York Times
Prevention Magazine
House Beautiful
Boston Globe
NBC News
NAPO has developed Five (5) Golden Circle Mastermind Groups and boasts more than 30 monthly Toot Your Horn posts from Veteran members sharing accomplishments, ideas, and tools.
NAPO currently offers 30 Acceleration Learning Series classes with more than 400 members having registered and completed them. These NAPO, members-only, free classes are for members, by members and are available conveniently by registration and download on POINT. Thank you to the NAPO Membership Committee for consistently creating new content and keeping the topics fresh!
NAPO boasts the new Stand Out Podcast Series that is performing more than 1000% above industry standard! By the end of this year, our amazing Stand Out podcast will have 24 podcasts available to help you build and grow your business. Thank you to podcast host Sarah Karakaian and the NAPO Marketing Committee for getting our podcast up and running.
NAPO offers six (6) membership categories that fit the needs of our diverse and varied membership. This year we streamlined our NAPO Bylaws to reflect the dynamic changes going on in our industry. Are you a Multi-Person Business? be sure to take advantage of the new MPB dues structure designed to help you manage your NAPO membership more efficiently. NAPO membership includes these statistics:
646 New members in past 12 months
54% of the membership belongs to Chapters
47% of the membership are Golden Circle
68% of the membership are Professional Members
11% of the membership are CPO®s
NAPO Boasts 26 Business Partners with new members joining monthly and former members returning! NAPOs business partners augment and assist NAPOs industry members’ businesses.
NAPO now offers three (3) Specialist Certificates to its members. NAPO members are prolific learners! Here’s how many certificates have been earned! There are 240 members who have earned a Residential Organizing certificate, 159 members have earned the Workplace Productivity certificate, 12 members (within the first month of its release!) have earned the Life Transitions certificate. And … 129 members have earned 2 certificates and 7 have earned all 3 certificates.
NAPO offers 38 on demand classes and 98 Conference Recordings available on NAPO University with 11,420 classes taken and 354 bundles sold to members. Our educational offerings are growing each year to meet the needs of the NAPO membership. Thank you NAPO Education Committee and NAPO instructors!
Last year NAPO Board initiated a 3 year rotation for board visits. Each year board members visit 1/3 of our chapters sharing our presentation, Leveraging Your NAPO Membership. This year, the NAPO Board visited 11 of the NAPO Chapters, sharing all the updates from NAPO, meeting our chapter leaders and getting to know our members is a joy for each of us.
As a result of the generosity of NAPO members funding the Barry Iszak/Glorya Schklair Scholarship Fund, the NAPO Scholarship Committee was able to select eight (8) worthy recipients of this scholarship for the NAPO2018 Conference.
Advancing industry research through Independent Research Projects is one of the four pillars of NAPO. This year one of the four projects is the new Dark Horse Project, which is featuring NAPO. This Harvard Graduate School of Education study, chronicles the journey people take to gain expertise in non-traditional, emerging professions.
NAPOCares is now an on-going, year-long initiative with no end in sight! The goal is to let the world know that NAPO Cares with 365 days of social outreach. NAPOCares wants to share and highlight how NAPO members give back to communities each and every day by sharing time, talents or treasures.
If you’re not on POINT yet you will want to be now! We have calculated that this year alone there have been over 41,000 POINT posts and 14,000 new discussion threads with 1000 member-to-member referrals. If your not on POINT, it’s the place to be! These member-to-member referrals on POINT occur in Member Connect and Chapter Member Connect.
NAPO has started a new way for our members and business partners to share their products and services. Since March 2018, 15 Monthly POINT posts for Product Push and Service Splash have been shared. Be sure to check out these posts on the first Wednesday of every month.
One of the most important values is for NAPO to be fiscally responsible and financially sound. In FY2015-2016 and FY2016-2017, we ended our fiscal year in the black. This year FY2017-2018 is looking good! Two (2) consecutive years of balanced budgets shows the growth and upward trend of the association.
NAPO uses four (4) primary social media connections. There’s power in connecting all year long! Please share, tweet, and like each and every day. Check out NAPO’s Get Organized and Be Productive Blog. NAPO is providing content that engage everyone for public awareness and what professional organizer and productivity consultants do. This benefits you and your clients, who also get this quality content to share. Remember to follow and share from your business accounts. For me its a way to be connected all year long and carries forward the contacts I make at our NAPO retreat and conference.
This is the most significant number to me! NAPO has 350 + Volunteers collaborating and sharing! Volunteer leaders are a driving force in our industry. Our passion, commitment and expertise drive our association and fuel our leadership. Thank you to all our of the volunteers who work on committees, special interest groups, task forces, chapters and more to support NAPO and its objectives. For those who would like to become a volunteer, please fill out the NAPO Volunteer Interest Survey.
On behalf of the NAPO2018 Attendees, the Board of Directors and the membership I would like to thank NAPO Chicago for their hospitality and their support of the annual retreat. Together we are better – together we are #TeamNAPO!