Author Archives: Nancy

Process for forming a new branch

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Check with the AAUW Membership Department for the current version. This was current as of July 2008.

Thank you for your interest in forming a new branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW.) AAUW members belong to a community that breaks through educational and economic barriers so that all women have a affair chance.

This document is a guide through the branch formation process, and all forms as well as reference materials are attached to this guide for your convenience.  Throughout this process you will need numerous documents listed below, however, we will remind you through each phase of the process when to use which documents.

Branch Formation Required Document List

  • State Board Approval for Branch Organization
  • Branch Formation and Naming Policy 205
  • Model Branch Bylaws (Select Model Bylaws or Working Rules)
  • Working Rules for Organizing Branches (Select Model Bylaws or Working Rules)
  • Petition for Branch Recognition
  • Checklist for Recruiting New Members (reference)
  • Sample letter for recruiting individuals (reference)
  • Charter Member List/Branch Officer Form
  • New/Renewal Additional Dues Remittance (ADR)

Phase I:

Work with your AAUW state membership vice president (MVP), who can offer you a wealth of information on AAUW and who can help you form a branch organizing team, recruit members, and complete the necessary paperwork to form a new branch.

Recruit a core group of three to five individuals. Involve them in organizing your new branch by educating them about AAUW’s mission and current initiatives. After they are familiar with AAUW, have them recruit 10 more individuals. We have attached a checklist for recruiting new members reference document. The total number of individuals needed to start a branch is 15.

Complete the attached State Board Approval for Branch Organization Form. Be sure to include the proposed name of your potential branch. Also review the attached Branch Formation and Naming Policy 205. Send the form to the state MVP, referenced above. After the state board of directors votes to grant approval for your branch, the form is signed by the state president and MVP and sent to the Association.  Once the Association receives the form, you will receive notification to proceed.

Required Phase I Documents

  • State Board Approval for Branch Organization
  • Branch Formation and Naming Policy 205 (reference)
  • Checklist for Recruiting New Members (reference)
  • Sample letter for recruiting individuals (reference)

Phase II:

Form task forces for bylaws completion, membership marketing, and program development.  The next three steps highlight the objectives of each task force.

Decide if your branch will operate under bylaws or working rules for the first year.  If you choose to operate under bylaws, complete the model bylaws (fill-in-the-blanks).  If you choose to operate under working rules, a sample copy is also attached.  Notify the Association bylaws chair of your choice, submitting two copies of model bylaws or notice of plan to use working rules.

…

Identify potential members and begin recruiting. Make a special effort to recruit women and men who represent a cross-section of your community in terms of age, race, cultural  background, abilities, religion, sexual orientation, and occupation. (You must have at least 15 individuals eligible for membership to be recognized as a branch. To be eligible, an individual must have an associate’s or equivalent baccalaureate or higher degree from a regionally accredited institution. Should you have fewer than 15 eligible individuals, you can form a satellite of another branch. Later, once you have a stronger membership base, you can choose to become a branch).

Plan your programming by asking where members interests lie. Discuss the community’s needs. Be sure to plan a small project that will spur your group into community action.

Required Phase II Documents

  • Model Branch Bylaws (Select Model Bylaws or Working Rules)
  • Working Rules for Organizing Branches (Select Model Bylaws or Working Rules)
  • Checklist for Recruiting New Members (reference)
  • Sample letter for recruiting individuals (reference)

Phase III:

Select your group’s officers. Then complete the Charter Member/Branch Officer Form so your group receives important AAUW leadership publications and notices. (The officers you initially choose may be temporary. Once your group becomes larger, you may choose to elect new officers. Just be sure to notify AAUW of new officers so they will receive AAUW leadership mailings. You can use the Officer Change Form to notify AAUW of new officers.)

Send the Charter Member/Branch Officer’s form along with the Petition for Recognition documents to AAUW. Also send a copy of the these documents to your state president. The following forms, included in your branch formation materials, must be completed for your group to be recognized as an AAUW branch:

  • Petition for Branch Recognition
  • Charter Member List/Branch Officer Form

In addition to the forms mentioned above, the Membership Toolkit for your Branch Membership Vice President and a Finance Toolkit for your Branch Finance Officer, are available on the website for downloading.

Required Phase III Documents

  • Petition for Branch Recognition
  • Charter Member List/Branch Officer Form

Phase IV:

Congratulations you are in the home stretch! At its next meeting, the AAUW Board of Directors will vote to officially recognize your group as a new AAUW branch. Soon after, you’ll receive a recognition letter, certificate, and a $50 award grant.

After you receive approval from the AAUW board it will now be time to begin collecting dues from your new members. All dues for state should be submitted to the state using a copy of the NEW/Renewal Additional Dues Remittance Form. Then send the state finance officer a copy of the Charter Member/Branch Officer’s Form and state dues for each branch member.

If your branch is opening a bank account, before doing so, you will need an Employee Identification Number (EIN) and you will need to complete an IRS Form SS-4. We know that IRS can be a challenge, but if you follow the quick tips below and read the attached materials from IRS you should be fine.

When completing the IRS’s SS-4 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fss4.pdf use these help tips:

  1. Begin with the application
  2. View additional materials, select continue
  3. Choose “other non-profit/tax exempt”, select continue
  4. Read and select continue
  5. Read and select continue
  6. Enter banking purposes
  7. Enter responsible party
  8. Select individual

We have embedded the necessary links below for your reference.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=102767,00.html

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq12-5.html

Required Phase IV Documents

  • New/Renewal Additional
    Dues Remittance (ADR) Forms (copy to send state with state dues and the original to AAUW with national dues)

Resources

As you grow your branch, you will find the AAUW website a great resource.  We have attached a key links in the AAUW Member Center that will help you grow your branch.

Membership Resources

http://www.aauw.org/member_center/resources/index.cfm?cs_LoginTime=171329

Membership Matters and Tips & Tactics the monthly MVP Highlights

http://www.aauw.org/member_center/resources/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=25990

Membership Campaigns

http://www.aauw.org/member_center/membership_growth/index.cfm

Membership Tool Kit

http://www.aauw.org/member_center/tools/MembershipToolkit/index.cfm

Member Services Database

https://svc.aauw.org/RECore/inc/Login.asp?member_id=AAUWSTF

Additional Dues Remittance (ADR) Forms

http://www.aauw.org/member_center/forms/additionaldues_newmembers.cfm

Continued contact with your state membership vice president will help your group move toward completion of all requirements.

Tech Toolkit — Progress?

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Once upon a time (1999 actually), AAUW published a set of toolkits — membership, president, leadership, etc. These were 8.5×11 guides that contained a wealth of information. In the almost ten years since, the idea has been extended and enhanced — the membership toolkit is updated each year, a public policy manual was recently published, the finance officers toolkit includes key information, and the entire series was augmented with the spring 2008 Leadership Development DVD. The current list includes:

Back when I served on the Association Program Development Committee 2001-2003, one of my goals was to plant the seeds for a Technology Toolkit — from the 2001 convention discussions (Tech-Savvy in the Branches special interest group, in particular) it was clear that AAUW could provide a member benefit by providing direction on what tech skills were key for members (and if not for all members for each branch to encourage some member to learn).

The problem’s enormous, of course.

This morning, I reconfigured wiki.bbvx.org to be a holding place for resources that I’ve been collecting along the way. I’m not sure why it took me so long to consider using the wiki to help outline the toolkit, but now that it’s done, I hope to gather my thoughts there — and to encourage others to contribute (at least to the list of topics that need to be covered).

Comments welcome!

Going back to tab navigation in iGoogle

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I’ve been recommending iGoogle for awhile — particular using iGoogle to display RSS feeds. It’s my default home page — showing AAUW headlines from a few sites, general news from a few sites, the weather here and at Mother’s, a clock, a couple of stock tickers, a few “fun” widgets, etc.

I’ve also set up a tab to access my Google docs –makes sense not to have that cluttering the main page since I think of it as a completely separate application.

A week or so ago, the tab navigation (at the top) changed to links on a left-hand sidebar. This apparently has something to do with Google’s earlier announcement of Open Social and their desire to reserve some screen real estate for updates like those that Facebook displays on your home page. But for me at the moment, the whole left-hand sidebar has just two links — a silly waste of space.

In the notice about the change, the unofficial Google blog says:

If you have the new version, but you prefer the previous interface, go to the settings page and select English (UK) from the list of languages. Please note that this is just a temporary fix.

Works for me, for now.

I guess the question is “When will the grand convergence come, and how will it fit on my 1400×1050 screen and my 1949-model brain?” For now, when I want to see updates from my contacts, I go to Facebook (not twitter, not friendfeed, not Google). When I want a quick overview of the world around me, I go to iGoogle (not Facebook).

When “real world” applications and “applications affecting contacts” start to run on the same platform, what will the UI look like to keep those different classes of applications both displayed in a way that makes sense?  Will my screen or my head explode first?

So long to the Facebook app change.org

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It’s been a long time since I’ve published my list of Facebook apps. The new Facebook interface (rolled out over the last few months) seems to have thrown a number of apps into never never land — and some of the backends of the apps have changed in ways that aren’t compatible with Facebook and may need work to bring them back.

There are other apps that seem to have floundered  – in particular ones that use RSS or other integration with outside sites (del.icio.us), but I’d like to write here about change.org.

I just found out that the redesign of change.org means that the Facebook links are broken. The new site looks good, and it sounds as if they are working on the integration — but the Facebook integration (ability, say, to invite Facebook friends to join the change) was a key factor for me. I doubt that I’ll be an active member of a completely separate change.org social network.

It also appears that they’ve backed away completely from organizing things around “what do you want to change?” I understand that might have left an enormous amount of “cruft” in the database, so the motivation to set up certain broad “causes” with paid staff to manage them must have very strong. But I now can’t find how to find my smaller “pay equity” change in the broader “women’s rights” cause. Once I login to the change.org site I can find my list of Facebook friends and invite them — but to what? I went there trying to post a link to a paper I’d found on the specific topic of Pay Equity — and the only way I could dope out to do that was to make “read the paper” an action for the Women’s Rights cause.

Ah, well. Nice idea while it lasted. A second warning to be careful about fundraising-type applications in Facebook (the demise of Charifree earlier this year was the first).