As my term as president of Women in Consulting comes to an end this week, I find myself reflecting on all the incredible experiences I’ve had throughout the last two years.
We celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2008 with not only a gala event, but a new look & feel for our website and a new blog. In 2009, we expanded our social media presence to include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
We expanded the reach of our organization, with strong and vibrant satellite groups in San Francisco, the East Bay and North Bay/Marin, as well as the South Bay and Peninsula.
We created a mentoring program and offered workshops to help consultants grow profitable businesses.
We expanded our Leaders Network to provide a venue for seasoned consultants to meet and exchange thoughts and ideas with their peers.
We expanded our profile in the community–partnering with a wide variety of organizations and associations, including the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, the Association for Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), FountainBlue, Astia, IMC NorCal, NorCAL BMA, and others.
We provided benefits to our community from groups like People OntheGo, SD Forum, Cubes & Crayons, Vertical Response, MarketingProfs, Egnite, WeMeUs, Zoomerang, and PR Newswire. And we continued our partnership with Million Dollar Consultant Alan Weiss and the Society for the Advancement of Consulting.
We held silent auctions to benefit Girls for a Change and collected donations for the Georgia Travis Center in San Jose.
Not only did we offer a top-notch set of outstanding speakers for monthly programs, but we launched teleseminar and webinar programs as well.
We continued to offer outstanding value to members and affiliates through our renowned mail list and other resources.
In fact, through the worst recession in nearly a century, we grew our community to be nearly 500 strong–with our ranks of full members swelling by nearly 40% this year.
And we did all this as an entirely volunteer run organization, with over 100 consultants taking on pro bono consulting roles for WIC.
Why, in a time when many organizations are struggling or even closing their doors, is WIC thriving? Because in addition to everything I’ve already mentioned, one of the most important things WIC provides is a strong, collaborative community–a place where consultants can come to learn as well as to socialize, to build their businesses as well as to connect with colleagues, to share experiences and develop referrals, to grow as individuals as well as part of a bigger whole.
For all of these reasons I feel extremely lucky to have had the privilege of guiding this organization over the last two years. And I feel extremely confident in turning over the reigns to the extremely capable and passionate Avery Horzewski to take WIC to the next level.
Thank you to all of you who are a part of WIC. WIC is community and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. Here’s to more wonderful WIC happenings in 2010 and beyond!
Thank you Linda for all that you did for WIC over the past two years! You’ve continued to set the bar high for what success looks like for WIC. I would also like to add my thanks to all of the consultants that helped us accomplish so much the past two years. WIC truly is a collaborative community, and I look forward to seeing the great things this wonderful group will accomplish in 2010!