7 minute read
THE POWER OF ENGAGEMENT
CEO Corner
Bringing Nurses Together in Meaningful Ways
By Serena Bumpus, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
JANUARY 2024 FEELS LIKE A LIFETIME AGO. As I reflect on the last year, I can’t help but feel a sense of pride in what TNA has accomplished and excitement for what’s ahead in 2025. The engagement we’ve seen from our members and their enthusiasm for TNA has contributed greatly to our successes.
Our five-year strategic plan was developed two years ago with a vision to create meaningful ways to re-engage current members and add new members. In 2023 we launched the five-year plan and focused on laying the foundation for engagement. This foundation set us up to begin 2024 with a plan to execute.
A LOOK BACK ON THE FOUR PILLARS
Sustainability
The Sustainability pillar’s objective is to demonstrate organizational excellence through stewardship of human, fiscal, organizational, community and environmental resources. This requires fiscal responsibility, good governance structures and efficiencies, including operational resources, to be effective. In the last year, TNA was able to achieve a 15% reduction in the budget deficit and members voted to change the bylaws to allow for the development of competency-based board positions.
Membership
Our objective is to grow membership by acquiring, engaging and retaining members through analysis of our value proposition, creating new partnerships, establishing new member categories, enhanced communication efforts and evaluating member benefits.
Did you know that there are 400,000 nurses in Texas and that less than 7% of Texas nurses are members of a professional nursing organization. When you break that down to TNA membership, less than 3% of Texas nurses belong to TNA. That is a huge gap in my mind, and we are heavily focused on growing TNA membership each year by 5%. While we did not fully reach this goal in year 2, we did make significant progress. Our goal was 16,480 members and we ended the year with 16,119. In January 2024, we launched state-only LVN membership and will end the year with 69 LVN members.
We also hit the road to engage with our members and potential new members across the state. We traveled to Lubbock, Amarillo, El Paso, Midland, Odessa, Brownsville, Harlingen and Corpus Christi. We engaged approximately 1,000 nurses and hundreds of nursing students.
Other foundational work was done in this pillar to prepare for a late 2024/early 25 launch of a student nurse hub, evaluation of member benefits, new member orientation sessions and media training.
Policy
While policy work is a large portion of what TNA does, it’s important that nurses engage with us in this process. The objective is to advance the quality and safety of patient care through policy initiatives that optimize professional nursing practice environments and promote the use of the knowledge and skills of nurses. We are specifically focused on our legislative initiatives, building coalitions, engaging members and building relationships with stakeholders.
In the last year, we have spent a great deal of time preparing for the upcoming 89th legislative session. This required engagement with various stakeholders to discuss policy issues that impact nurses. Stakeholders included health systems plus the growing Nursing Legislative Agenda Coalition. The Policy Council and its subcommittees have been creating policy positions for the coming year. We are also preparing to launch the Capital Nurse Corps in anticipation of the session. Learn what it means to advocate and where to start by taking our Advocacy education series in our learning management system. Last, we created the Nursing Student Policy Summit where we educated hundreds of nursing students on the value of being engaged in advocacy early.
Profession
TNA is uniquely positioned and poised to guide and lead nursing in Texas. Our objective is to optimize TNA’s ability to lead the advancement of the profession through engagement with nurses and others. This requires us to focus on our education, events, publications, recognition and the products and programs offered. We achieved a lot in this pillar last year!
TNA embarked on our organizational DEIB journey in January and launched the DEIB committee in July.
We developed a workplace violence implementation toolkit in partnership with the Texas Hospital Association.
TNA increased educational offerings in our online Learning Management Center by 20 learning activities.
We launched a mentorship program for TNA members.
We increased the number of in-person Nursing Peer Review Workshops.
TNA exceeded our goal for annual conference registrations with 421.
We increased the number of poster presentations and added podium presentations at the annual conference.
TNA engaged in partnerships with the Special Olympics, March of Dimes and Red Cross to create local community engagement opportunities for nurses.
We developed an outreach toolkit for public speaking and community engagement.
We partnered with for-profit organizations to offer nurses gifts and discounts during nurses’ week.
TAN honored the Leaders and Legends of Texas Nursing and the Outstanding 25 Texas Nurses of 2024 at the Celebration Gala during the annual conference.
WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON?
Great opportunities for additional growth are in our sights. We will continue to focus on fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget. TNA is on target to reduce the budget deficit by 20% while also developing plans to diversify our revenue streams.
We head into 2025 with a goal to increase membership by 5% which will get us to 16,925 members. At the time of this writing, (October 2024), we sit at 16,345 members. We have 580 to go in order to reach our goal by June 30, 2025! In addition to adding new members, we are also focused on member retention. On average, we lose around 300 members a month. Over 50% of that loss is attributed to bad credit cards on file or those on the annual renewal cycle who forget to renew their membership. You can help us exceed our goal by making sure you are renewing your membership in a timely manner and updating your credit card when you get a new one. Our goal is to reduce member turnover by 5% this year. Our goal is to increase LVN membership to 120 members. We think this is achievable by engaging LVN programs and employers of LVNs. Consider gifting an LVN membership—it’s only $60 annually or $5.50/month!
Are you a new member or have been a member for a while but never really taken advantage of your membership? Join us for one of our monthly membership orientations to learn more.
The 89th legislative session begins January 14. We are busy preparing to ensure a successful session for nurses. Please join us for Nurse Day at the Capital on March 3-4 in Austin. In 2023, we had 600+ nurses join us. They made a huge impact on our success. We hope to see 800 at Nurse Day in 2025!
Did you miss our annual conference last year? Having a little bit of FOMO as a result? Attend our 2025 conference in Austin June 5-7! This year’s theme is "The Power of Us. Advancing our Profession Together." The call for abstracts is now open and will close December 1. In 2024, we exceeded our attendance target and in 2026 we hope to do the same with 600 attendees! Make a plan to attend. Registration is open!
Thank you for being a member of TNA! Our members make TNA an amazing organization. If you have an idea for how we can continue to capitalize on our success and appeal to a wider audience, please send your ideas to tna@texasnurses.org. I hope to see you soon!
