Change the World. Drive Profitability.
DORA LUTZ | Founder and President, GivingSpring | Bio

The year’s opening keynote is designed for association leaders seeking to understand how to build purpose into their organization in a way that adds to the bottom line. Using the Aspirational Business Model, this presentation begins with a pre-assessment that allows attendees to understand where opportunities for greater organizational purpose exist.

Through a presentation filled with storytelling and examples, audience members will walk away with an awareness of the Aspirational Business Model, an understanding of how purpose adds value to an organization’s Net Income, EBIT Return on Equity, and 3-5 concrete next steps to begin building into their organizations.

I'm Not Limping. That's Swagger!
How Shifting Your Perspective Can Dramatically Boost Your Potential and Performance
KELSEY TAINSH | Bio

In this age of rapid-change, increased competition and endless pressure to perform, it’s no wonder that employees are feeling the stress and more vocal about their dissatisfaction. But few people understand real challenges more than 30-year-old Kelsey Tainsh. A stroke victim at age 15, Kelsey has spent the past fifteen years defying stereotypes and confounding both doctors and doubters. Kelsey has learned that the key to inclusion lies in teaching people to embrace their differences and recognize the unique gifts that everyone brings to work and relationships. Delivered with humor, remarkable insights and profound takeaways, this keynote presentation will help you gain a new perspective on creating a more inclusive dynamic and an enlightened approach to boosting work satisfaction. You will learn to transcend discontent and walk away with a resilient new mindset and a fresh appreciation for the gift of work, accomplishment and the relationships we all share.

Attendees will learn:

• The real value of a diverse workplace
• To be more inclusive by embracing the gifts we have in common.
• How most people have some disabilities or differences and how we try to hide them.
• How to work better with those who have disabilities and differences.
• How revealing differences can bring them closer to their co workers

Being A Great Teammate: Leading In Adversity
GARY BRACKETT | Bio

Former Indianapolis Colts Captain Gary Brackett breaks down the steps you need to take to affect change and be a leader from the position you are in TODAY.

• Uncover key principles for being the best teammate you can be
• Learn to impact the game from your position
• Understand the level of commitment it takes to achieve team goals
• Keep others accountable while building healthy relationships based on mutual respect

Do you go to a conference with the objective to learn and network, but you aren’t quite sure how to meet new people? Are you too shy to start a conversation or maybe you perceive others as too friendly or as too aggressive? Do you find yourself or others gathering business cards as if there will be an award given for the person who collects the most? Do you struggle after the conference to follow up because you aren’t sure how to or you feel overwhelmed?

Today you will discover how to make new connections that will create new referrals, new business, and additional networking possibilities. You will learn how to not only identify the communication styles of your new connections but the best way to follow up with them as well.
Claudia-Jean Virga is the founder and creator of the CHAT Communication System. She has been networking for over 25 years and has made every mistake possible and then some. Claudia-Jean has lost business from not following up or shutting up. She has also, at times, found herself sneaking out the back door at events where she didn’t know anyone. She has been faced with a stack of business cards at the end of an event with no clue as to who or how to follow up. She understands how difficult networking can be and will share how success can be as easy as just one chat away!

During this session, you’ll discover

• How to quickly assess other people’s communication styles and adjust your own to facilitate more effective and authentic conversations.
• How to create a deeper relationship quickly.
• How to follow up with your connections in their preferred communication style, yielding better results.

If you want to turn this conference into your most successful networking experience, do not miss this opening session.

Seizing on Opportunities – For Your Association and You
CHRIS PRICE | Partner, The Mattison Corporation | Bio

This workshop will help attendees identify opportunities for new programming for their association, and how the development of new associations might benefit your members and you. Explore how one association management company has built a business around the development of new programs and the creation of new non-profits. Attendees will get advice on how to identify opportunities, and how those opportunities can benefit your organization and thought leaders within your organization.

If I had a dime for every time I heard a stakeholder say, “What’s the big deal? We can just stream it on Facebook live, Right?” I would actually have enough money to put on a Virtual Conference like Dreamforce. Alas, small associations don’t have the staff time or budgets to support an event of that magnitude, but we also have to provide a better user experience than a conference streamed on a cellphone over Facebook. Over the last year, Emilie Perkins has gathered lessons learned and best practices from Virtual Conferences that she has both produced and attended. Join her for a collaborative discussion on how you can apply her research to your next Virtual Conference.

At the completion of this session, participants will be able to:
1. Describe your Virtual Conference purpose.
2. Understand the best practices for stakeholder preparation.
3. Discuss best practices and lessons learned for Virtual Conference success.

Do you struggle to keep your decisions consistent with your brand? Do you and your team make judgment errors that you feel could have been avoided? Do your actions foster an environment of trust with your customers and staff?

Our success is determined by how well our decisions align with our goals and values. However, we are frequently thwarted by our inner “lizard brain” and its subconscious shortcuts, impulses and biases that falsely influence our decision making. In this session, you will discover how to increase customer and employee trust and loyalty by improving their decision performance, ensuring consistency between their decisions and their brand.

Discover:
1. How to build and maintain client trust through brand consistency
2. How relationships can be improved by overcoming the mental shortcuts that undermine customer and employee loyalty
3. The self-deceptions that sabotage great decision making
4. Why metacognition is essential to peak performance

Do your members LOVE your website? Research says ours didn’t. Learn the critical steps to launch a new website experience based on data and research from a team who just walked through the process.

Launching an association website is an extensive project. Learn tips to ensure you’re approaching a website rebuild properly.

Participants will be able to:
1. Understand how data and research can be applied for a successful website experience
2. Evaluate their own website shortcomings and put tangible steps in place to implement change
3. Outline key measurements and data points that can be used to develop a real-time dashboard

BRAD GILLUM | President, CEO and Founder, Willow Marketing | Bio

Willow Marketing’s landmark 2020 Association Member Segmentation Research provided new insights into the attitudes, needs, and preferences of over 4,000 association members. The study showed that many association members were unsure as to whether or not they would be able to rise above the difficult situations brought on by COVID-19. The question still exists and we intend to dive deeper with our research to see what long-term effects the pandemic has had on association members.

In addition, sizable percentages of members were questioned in early summer 2020 about whether they felt associations were going to be able to give members the value and resources that they expected. Associations had just started pivoting and making changes that became wholesale shifts for their organizations as events were canceled, face-to-face networking and learning were shifted to other means and conventions went virtual.

The research, which has continued into 2021, has allowed Willow to identify, with statistical accuracy, four distinct member attitudinal segments that exist in all associations. This session will dive into details on each and provide tools for association executives to simply identify these attitudinal segments in their membership.

Key Takeaways:

1. Participants will better understand how association changes and pivots during the pandemic were perceived by their members.
2. Participants will learn which features and benefits are most valuable to current and prospective members and whether they have changed as a result of the pandemic.
3. Participants will learn how their members' beliefs, attitudes, and needs have changed post-pandemic.
4. Participants will learn how they can simply identify these attitudinal segments in the membership.

The Third Rail of Association Work: Advocacy
HOLLY DAVIS | Vice President of External Relations, Indiana Philanthropy Alliance | Bio

Three Main pillars of Association work are education, networking and advocacy, but, in today's divisive climate, many of our members are hesitant to talk about advocacy for fear of alienating members/donors. However, much of their fear comes from lack of knowledge of the process or clarity of goals. Studies show members want to know where their association stands on the issues important to them and donors want to know that trade associations are taking action to ensure their money is maximized through policy remedies that can make the work of associations easier.

This interactive session will explore:

• Dos & Don'ts
• Engaging stakeholders
• Establishing metrics and goals for the outcomes you want
• An Association's role in advocacy
• Benefits

Case Studies in Managing Volunteers
BRIAN LEWIS, CAE | Executive Director, Raybourn Group International | Bio
MARK LEWIS, MS | Director of Membership and Projects, Raybourn Group International | Bio

This session will provide real world examples of successful programs in managing volunteers from a number of different associations. By examining case studies, we will highlight best practices for recruiting new volunteers and managing your volunteer structure. Attendees will leave this session with practical ideas for improving their association's volunteer program. This session will also provide the perspective of active volunteers and what they look for in a successful and engaging volunteer program.

Creating the Black-Tie Member Experience
BOB PACANOVSKY | Bio

Identify and implement this “Missing Link” that turns Member Service transactions into Black Tie Brand Ambassadors! Explore the four principles connected to this missing link to deliver a consistent Black Tie Member Experience!

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to Build a Foundation (Culture) of Hospitality (Welcome)
• Creating YOUR Standards of Excellence to attract and retain employees, volunteers, and members
• Developing your Impact Points by first becoming a member in your association
• Transforming your Members into Brand Ambassadors 

Immediately following the Annual Meeting, "State of the Industry" will cover updates on COVID-19's impact on the association/non-profit industry - both locally and nationally, regulatory updates, as well as an update on hospitality/tourism in Indiana.

Regulatory Update: Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch
Meetings/Events/Hospitality Update: Sara Nash, CAE, Executive Director, MPI Indiana
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Update: ISAE DEI Task Force

Leading difficult conversations on topics such as racism, social injustices and discrimination is not easy. But these conversations, and the actions that follow, are essential to moving forward as a society. But where do you start? What questions need to be asked? How are these conversations best approached with an association's staff, board and members?

At ICON 2021, attendees will have an opportunity to talk through these questions and more with peers in an open, safe environment, through facilitated roundtable discussions. Participants will walk away with actionable steps to leading these difficult conversations, learn what has or has not worked for other associations, and gain tools to be leaders of social change on behalf of their staff and members.