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This is another in a series of occasional ASHA Executive Director updates. These updates are intended to provide ASHA members with a more in-depth view of various National Office units, their key member services and the names and roles of ASHA staff in those units. Information about staff changes and ASHA National Office recognitions/awards is also included.
Many thanks to those of you who have provided feedback regarding the previous updates (posted on the ASHA Web site) or suggestions for future ED updates
This update focuses on 2006 ASHA National Office Efficiencies and Cost Savings Efforts.
Examples of 2006 Cost Savings:
Continuing Education (CE)
- Communicated with 491 CE Providers via email rather than regular mail – saved over $8,000 in postage, envelopes, and paper plus 275 staff hours.
- Continued to add modules to the CE Administrator tutorial, an online learning module for CE Providers about ASHA CE policy and procedures – a "24-7" resource for CE Administrators - reduced phone costs, and saved over 228 staff hours.
- Continued online reporting of CE courses. Began piloting a process so Providers can fax course completion documents – saved over 80 hours of staff time.
- Provided resources at Convention and other conferences that directed people to the ASHA Web site - eliminated excess paper and mailing costs - saved $4,500.
Conventions and Meetings
- Saved approximately $5,000 by cutting back on print run for the exhibitor prospectus and promoting it via the Web site.
- Negotiated multi-year contract with service contractor, Champion, extending a discount that saved approximately $10,000 over 2005 contract.
- Produced Convention Program book and program-at-a-glance for approximately $24,000 less than budgeted cost; overall revenue above expenses was about $58,000.
- Ensured that production of the Convention Daily newspaper was completely paid for by ad sales.
- Implemented changes in registration counters and equipment at Convention, saving approximately $20,000 - with no adverse impact to onsite registration.
- Increased Convention promotion through ads in publications and online newsletter (vs. separate print promotions) - saved approximately $20,000.
Facilities Management
- Negotiated a new long distance and Internet contract with Verizon - saving $16,700.
- Eliminated the need for the folder/inserter machine – saving $15,000 per year.
- Added large paper envelopes to our Central Supply inventory that are recyclable and less expensive than the current Tyvek envelopes – saving approximately $6,500.
- Negotiated new mailing machine lease – saving $2,200.
- Successfully combined four staff positions into two – saving $85,000.
Finance
- Used cash management strategies to avoid pre-construction borrowing for the new National Office until a first draw in mid-September 2006 – resulting in a net ASHA interest savings of just under $100,000 (over multiple years).
- Staff pursued revenue ASHA was entited to from class action suits:
- $1,599.66 from Worldcom
- $10,878.04 from a suit against VISA and MasterCard.
GRPP Cost Savings
- Changed vendors for its online state/federal legislative and regulatory search engine from Lexis-Nexis to Westlaw - saving approximately $1,500 per month.
IS Efficiencies
- Streamlined fulfillment and shipping processes via order entry in netFORUM – resulting in faster shipping and added ability to track shipments.
- Saved staff time and improved the customer experience through development of the Online store. Order entry is now automated (previous online store required manual re-entry of orders); for the 3-months in 2006 that the online store was available, it accounted for 45% of ASHA product sales.
- Created a point of sale system (i.e., real time on-site) for the ASHA bookstore at Convention and other ASHA sponsored conferences – reduced shipment time and saved staff time (no re-entry of data).
- Automated Special Interest Division exams - eliminated the need for volunteers to grade them.
Membership
- Switched to in-house development and maintenance of The Gathering Place, an Internet-based student mentoring program - eliminating the $10,000 annual license fee to the former contractor.
- Selected a new vendor for production of dues renewal reminder postcards - saved $19.30 per thousand.
ASHA Professional Development
- Converted to "paperless" telephone seminars: handout materials, CEU forms, and seminar instructions are posted to a secure Web page. Registration triggers access to the page, eliminating the need to ship a physical packet of materials. Estimated savings in 2006: $15,000.
- Used more blast emails for more program promotion, saving $14,000 in marketing expenses (print advertisements and brochures) while increasing registrations and revenues.
Publications
- Launched a redesigned version of The ASHA Leader at a savings of $1,500 per issue (despite postal increases).
- Switched delivery of journals and The ASHA Leader to our Canadian members and subscribers from ISAL to Canada Post at midyear - saving $6,700 in postage during the 6-month period.
- Used "drop shipping" for delivery of the Convention Program - saving $8,000 in spite of increasing the number of copies by 5,000.
- Continued to encourage migration from print to online recruitment advertising for jobs. Printing all of the online ads in 2006 in The ASHA Leader would have cost approximately $160,000 per year, whereas vendor support for the online Career Center currently costs only $36,000 per year.
- Discontinued express mailing of recruitment advertising rate cards now that all information is posted online - saving approximately $1,200 per year.
- Arranged with printer for "gang printing" of covers for ASHA projects using same paper, similar inks, and sending to the printer simultaneously. The original estimate for single printing of one cover was $1,150; the final cost with this arrangement was $372. Similar savings were realized on the other covers.
- Moved online hosting of the ASHA journals to HighWire Press, providing a better platform in both quality and accessibility and saving publications and Web staff many hours of work for each issue.
Scientific Programs and Research Development (SPRD)
- Continued to make greater use of the ASHA Web site (e.g., posting resource documents and announcements of events or travel stipends, that would previously have been photocopied and mailed).
- Used electronic media for conducting conference evaluations and posting surveys (vs. mailing hard copies).
Speech-Language Pathology Cluster
- Continued emphasis on directing members to the ASHA Web site and saving the time and expense of copying and mailing resources. Examples include:
- Access Schools and Access Health Care e-zines highlight relevant resources and new information through links on the ASHA Web page.
- Six new school packets were added to the Web rather than as mail-out packets.
- Fewer packets, documents, and resources are brought to the Schools Conference, Health Care Conference, and the ASHA Convention; instead, members are given lists of Web links for resources available "24-7" when members need them.
- Posted presentations and discussion items from the Fall Forum on Solving Personnel Shortages online rather than mailing them to participants and interested members/groups.
Surveys and Information
- Continued to save money by using a Web-based survey package. The cost per response was $.06 in 2004, $.04 in 2005, and $.05 in 2006 compared to the more than $5 per paper respondent in earlier years. In 2006 the 3-year cost savings reached $200,000.
National Office Staff Updates
The following individuals are new to the ASHA staff since December 2006:
- Sharon Beamer, Associate Director, Audiology Professional Practices
- Kathleen Halverson, Production Editor
- Charlene Lathers, Database Services Specialist
- Anne Oyler, Associate Director, Audiology Professional Practices
- Margaret Rogers, Chief Staff Officer for Science and Research
The following staff has changed positions within ASHA:
- Janet Deppe, Director of State Advocacy Team, (formerly Director, State Education Policy)
- Ghazala Osman, Education Program Coordinator, (formerly Registration Manager)
The following individuals have left ASHA to pursue other opportunities:
- Jerome Abellano, PC Support Specialist
- Craig Cohill, Receiving Clerk
Next Executive Director Update: National Student Speech Language Hearing Association 35th Anniversary.
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