[Nfbmo] FW: Focus on Membership: Finding New Members Through the Healthcare Community

[Wunder, Gary]

Let's take this on as an affiliate and a chapter goal. Please see below.

From: Trevino, Danielle
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2016 9:14 AM
To: Trevino, Danielle
Subject: Focus on Membership: Finding New Members Through the Healthcare Community

Hello Fellow Federationists:
As you may recall, we promised to send biweekly emails with suggestions of different things you could do to recruit new members. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Recently, a man named George and his wife came into the Jernigan Institute for a tour. During their visit, I learned that George had lost his sight only five weeks prior. As I was waiting for them to make their purchases at the Independence Market, George's wife told me that he was being treated at one of the largest ophthalmic institutions in Baltimore, and she was surprised that they never referred her to us. "I figured they'd send us to you since you've got all these resources, but they never even mentioned you." The couple left armed with lots of information and a few gadgets for their kitchen. They promised to follow up with their local chapter.
It's great that they found the National Federation of the Blind, but what about all of the people who leave their doctors with a diagnosis but no resources?
This is where we come in. As members of our communities, we have the ability to visit doctors' offices, support groups, VAs, dieticians, and so many more places to inform consumers and employees of these locations that there are resources out there. More importantly, there is a Federation family waiting to offer education, advocacy, community, and support.
Your goal for this quarter is to visit ten offices-whether it's eye doctors, endocrinologists, physical/occupational therapists, support groups, veterans' affairs, counselors, or dieticians, it only takes a few minutes to hand them some literature about the NFB and give them your contact information.
Remember that many hands make lighter work. This is a great opportunity to engage as many chapter members as possible. Assign each volunteer a number of offices to visit, designate someone to be your new member coordinator, etc.
Materials are available. NFB literature, alphabet cards, and Kernel Books are all available for you to order from the Independence Market. These are great leave-behinds for the offices you visit.
Furthermore, we've just gotten our new membership cards. The cards are bi-fold, similar in size to a business card when folded. On the front, they feature our logo. They open vertically and on the upper half of the card is a QR code that leads to a webpage that contains basic NFB information such as our one minute message and the NFB pledge. The bottom half has a place for the new member's name to be written or Brailled, the date they joined, and the signature of the chapter president. President Riccobono's signature is on the lower right-hand side. The very back of the card says "Live the life you want." These are in bundles of twenty-five; you can contact me directly to order the cards.
As always, we would love to hear about your activities in your communities, so please share your stories via phone, email, and social media. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Let's go build the Federation!

Danielle Trevino
Coordinator for Social Media and Member Engagement
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
  Baltimore, MD 21230
P: (410) 659-9314, Extension 2358
E: dtrevino at nfb.org<mailto:dtrevino at nfb.org>
W: www.nfb.org<http://www.nfb.org/>
FB: National Federation of the Blind
TW: @NFB_voice
Live the life you want in 2016. Join the NFB today!<https://nfb.org/how-join>



The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.

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