Maintain a Mutually Beneficial Relationship with Your PRSA Sponsor Chapter
Editor’s Note: To commemorate PRSA/PRSSA Relationship Month, PRSSA is running a series of posts on how to grow your relationships within the profession. An archive of PRSSA professional development posts can be found here. More information also can be found in the PRSA/PRSSA Relationship Manual.
One of the greatest benefits of being a member of PRSSA is the relationship we have with our parent organization, PRSA. What could be better than learning directly from public relations professionals? What could be easier than connecting with experts that enjoy mentoring upcoming professionals? What could be more rewarding than a mutually beneficial relationship with your PRSA sponsor Chapter?
Learn from Caitlin Farhat, PRSSA Chapter president of Morehead State University, about how her Chapter maintains and benefits from a relationship with its PRSA sponsor Chapter.
Q: How did your Chapter start the relationship with your PRSA sponsor Chapter?
Caitlin Farhat: Our Chapter’s PRSSA/PRSA relationship started when we were rebuilding. We also needed assistance finding guest speakers and a professional adviser. We found out about our sponsor Chapter through PRSSA National, and our first step of reaching out was subscribing to their newsletter to learn more about their Chapter.
Q: What were difficulties when starting the relationship?
CF: Morehead State University is a relatively small college in a very little town in Eastern Kentucky. The closest PRSA Chapter is an hour away, so this time and distance made starting a relationship more difficult. It also took some time to figure out how to get in touch with the Chapter and who the right people to talk to were.
Q: What is the most effective way of communicating with your sponsor Chapter?
CF: Currently, the most effective form of communication between our PRSSA and PRSA Chapters is through email. Now that we have been able to meet some of our sponsor Chapter’s members, we can stay in touch without having to actually meet face-to-face all of the time, which has been very helpful.
Q: How do you maintain the relationship with your sponsor Chapter?
CF: In order to maintain our relationship we try to stay in contact with our sponsor Chapter as much as possible. We subscribe to their newsletter and do our best to send some of our members to their monthly luncheons. Our professional adviser is also a member of our sponsor Chapter, so she is a great link for us. We invite all of the members in our sponsor Chapter to be guest speakers at our PRSSA Chapter meetings as well.
Q: What are the main benefits for your Chapter?
CF: The largest benefit to having a relationship with our sponsor Chapter definitely would be the networking opportunities available to our members. Meeting public relations professionals by attending PRSA luncheons and having guest speakers at our Chapter meetings is such a valuable asset.
This is a guest blog post written by Vice President of Professional Development Helma von Zadow. Follow her on Twitter @HelmaVonZadow.
