PFA 2021 Convention Schedule

Thursday September 9

Future Forward Meetings: Design Thinking for Events Strategy Katie Riggs, Riggs & Co
The industry of meetings and events is an ever-changing landscape. This is truer than ever with the current climate. Simply hitting auto pilot or the old rinse and repeat method no longer works for the savvier audiences of today. Change for the sake of change is rarely what organizations do. If it works or seems to work why innovate or change? The reason is that now we are all faced with a challenge to innovate quickly to remain relevant and connected to our audience.

The way to accomplish this is to approach planning for your next meeting or event from a place who and not how. Far too often organizations start with the logistics without even considering the needs of their core audience. To deeply impact your audience, your event must insight a change in behavior. In this session we will cover how design thinking is applicable to meetings and events and explore one process that that can be applied to any meeting planning process. Read more.

Friday September 10

Session I Matt Mattson, Phired Up | Growing PFA Chapters in 2021 and Beyond

The marketing, recruitment, and retention landscape is changing quickly. The fundamentals of chapter growth remain the same, but the tactics and adaptations to a rapidly changing world require all us to stay on top of our game. And let's be honest, many of our chapters aren't great at the fundamentals to begin with. Matt Mattson, President & Co-Founder of Phired Up & TechniPhi, will provide an update from the overall sorority/fraternity industry's front lines of growth, and most importantly will engage in a Q&A time with PFA leaders to help clarify growth-focused plans for this year and beyond. Come with your marketing, recruitment, and retention questions ready. Read more.

Michael Tatonetti | Why Now is the Time to Change Your Pricing Strategy (and How to Do It)

If there’s one thing most associations faced over the past year, it’s that a lack of a pricing and value strategy for your products and services leads to knee jerk reactions when an emergency hits. The good news? Now is the perfect time to implement a pricing and value strategy. In this session, you will learn what components your strategy needs, where to start today, and how to continue your strategy with continuous improvement for years to come – emergency or not.

After this session, you’ll be able to:

• Analyze which components of a pricing and value strategy your organization is lacking
• Develop a plan of action to initiate a proper pricing and value strategy
• Execute an annual review for continuous improvement in value and pricing

Read more.

Patrick Jessee | Looking Over the Cliff - Exploring the 3 Phases of Succession Planning

One thing that is always constant in any organization is that people will leave. But in the daily hustle of putting out fires and executing on the mission, we often miss opportunities to plan proactively for these eventual departures. I'll provide an in depth analysis of best practices, tips, and tools for planning and executing board leadership, CEO, and leadership team succession that transforms these transitions from liabilities into powerful growth opportunities.

Saturday September 11

Sunny Nastase | Principles of Conducting a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Organizational Audit

Increasing global attention on diversity, equity and inclusion presents an opportunity for PFA member organizations to engage in a disciplined manner to strengthen appreciation for diversity in our staff, members, volunteers and vendors, and to ensure the messages we send are consistent with our intent and our practices.

This conference workshop will focus on how PFA-member leadership can conduct an individual organizational diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) Assessment, inclusive of a Playbook for implementation. Key topics include identifying the current state of your organization, identification of gaps/opportunities to increase diversity, identification of actionable steps to fortify organizational intent to achieve specific goals. In addition, we will address methods of measurement including data gathering and long-term use of metrics to move the organization forward.