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IFVP 2019 MID YEAR CHECK IN

Can you believe it is already July? The time flies because we have so many great things happening this year!

Conference planning for 2019 and 2020

2019: the Conference Committee, led by co-chairs Leah Silverman and Lucinda Levine and Phil Bakelaar, Renatta Algolarrondo, Launa Post and IFVP President Sunny BenBelkacem, has been meeting since June 2018 to design and plan a multi-track conference packed with great content, practitioners, and leaders in the fields we play in. We are excited to welcome practitioners from over 25 countries to Montclair University in Montclair, NJ.

2020: 2020 will mark 25 years of IFVP conferences. In light of our 25th anniversary, we want to create a stellar experience. The board and conference committee explored partnering with Mona Ebdrup’s vision for a conference in Capetown. While the final decision was that we would not host the conference in South Africa and that we would return to the “roots” of the organization, in California, we support all members and practitioner’s efforts to convene and galvanize community across the world. IFVP is pleased to see the community self-organizing and we hope to act as a bridge and partner to any and all who want to convene practitioners in the spirit of learning and sharing with one another. 

Chapters

When the European Visual Practitioner group began convening across Europe, the IFVP was there to lend support, share knowledge around establishing an organization, and help the group decide how to evolve as partners. In September 2018, EVP and IFVP signed a Memo of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate to create the very first IFVP chapter, the European IFVP Region. Led by a board of IFVP members, Béa Broskova, Olivier Pesret, Filippo Buzzini, (and who else?), they have worked very hard in the last 9 months to collaborate with the IFVP Chapter committee on what the global/regional chapter governance model is, how finances flow, operations, and membership looks like. 

In the meantime, we are having conversations with other groups around the world, to possibly create more chapters. This is an exciting time for IFVP and for the Visual Practitioner community, as we start to galvanize and make connections with colleagues across the globe! 

IFVP Institute

The IFVP Institute was formed as a charitable and educational organization. More specifically, the IFVP Institute is os organized to promote the development and application of visual thinking and practices, such as graphic recording and graphic facilitation, through sponsored research, public education programs, and related activities.

Membership growth

We are close to breaking the 500 mark! We currently have 497 members. As the practice proliferates across the globe, how many more members can we add?

Technology

Under the guidance of Jenny Trautman, IFVP president from 2015 to 2019, and the CTO, Phil Bakelaar, the organization made a significant investment in technology platforms to support a scaling organization. We invested in CiviRM, software developed for membership associations, and have created the platforms required for a membership to leverage in various capacities. 

Phil did a great job this conference season by saving the organization money by building all the conference pages in-house, which meant we didn’t have extra fees involved by a conference platform, payment processor, and site admin to support and troubleshoot. It wasn’t perfect, but Phil learned a ton about how to administer the conference modules of our website. 

Benefits

Member Survey

Access to content from top GR/GF in the field (Heather Martinez and Alece Birnbach,Verity Harrison, Raquel Benmergui)

Platforms to engage on to network, teach and learn 

Access to GF/GR network across the globe

members4members: connecting member to member-discounted events and sessions