The IPA Membership Committee comprises a group of committed and creative members whose efforts center around three driving goals of recruitment, retention, and connection. This blog post serves to provide a summary of recent membership trends and much-appreciated efforts by the Membership Committee to maintain a trend of growth. Current committee members include:
Ashley Banta IPA Student Representative-Elect
Angelica Castro Bueno Student Liaison from Diversity and Social Justice Committee
Alissa Doobay, PhD Co-Chair
Eric Field IPA Student Representative
Suzanne Hull IPA Executive Director
Nicole Keedy, PhD Co-Chair
Jenna Paternostro, PhD Liaison to Early Career Psychologists Committee
David VanHorn, PhD Newly Welcomed Committee Member
The committee also benefits from the assistance of three ancillary members who reach out to non-renewed members each year to assist and encourage renewals. These members include:
Ashley Freeman, PhD
Laura Fuller, PhD, ABPP
Lauren Garvin, PhD
The Membership Committee is guided by their unique Strategic Plan Worksheet, which is included in the overarching IPA Strategic Plan as linked on the home page of the IPA website: www.iowapsychology.org. Several successful efforts utilized over the past year have included recruitment meetings with Iowa’s doctoral psychology students, renewal outreach and assistance, updating application forms to promote inclusivity, connecting members with leadership opportunities, sending recruitment letters to newly licensed psychologists and conference attendees, maintaining the student mentorship and sponsorship programs, highlighting the contributions of student members, and recognizing the dedicated efforts of IPA’s leaders.
One particularly exciting effort by the Membership Committee in recent months included reaching out to leaders from a variety of IPA positions to form a Marketing Consultant Workgroup. The Membership Committee carefully considered the committee experiences and perspectives that would be desirable to fulfill the desired responsibilities of this workgroup. Under leadership of Dr. Jenna Paternostro, this group will seek proposals and select a consultant to assist IPA with branding (e.g., logo, brochure and website graphics, etc.), and other aspects of IPA’s marketing strategy. This workgroup includes:
Angelica Castro Bueno, Student Member
Alissa Doobay, PhD
Suzanne Hull, Executive Director
Sarah Fetter, PhD
Jenna Paternostro, PhD
Mark Poeppe, PsyD
We are excited to receive updates as this highly capable and enthusiastically formed workgroup aims to define and pursue their goals over the next year.
Each May, the Membership Committee Co-Chairs provide an update of membership numbers for a spreadsheet listed under the Member Resources tab of the IPA website. This spreadsheet and many additional members-only resources may be found by clicking this link and entering your login information: https://iopa.memberclicks.net/member-resources?servId=9168.
As the numbers and graph below illustrate, we have continued the trend of membership growth since 2020. With strong numbers in 2022, simply retaining the same number of members through renewal time would have been a notable feat. To have increased member numbers across multiple categories and to have nearly half of licensed psychologists living in Iowa as members of the association are commendable accomplishments by this devoted committee.
These trends demonstrate a high degree of success by the Membership Committee in pursuing their Strategic Plan objectives over the past year. It is noted that all leaders and committees in IPA participate in the efforts that assist in providing highly valued benefits to our members. We wish to extend our highest gratitude to these individuals whose commitment provide the foundation of a strong and growing association. Additionally, we wish to extend appreciation to all IPA members for contributing to a supportive, productive, and engaged membership that promotes a desire to remain connected through IPA!
