Our strategic planning work

Hello IFVP friends! This is my first blog entry since taking on the president role from Sunny (big shoes to try to step into!). I'm grateful for the way the Board of Directors has been working to think through the evolving mission of the IFVP. So many things have changed in the 25 years since a few gathered in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our field has expanded globally and we now have members working together in agencies and interrally in corporations. It seemed like a good time for the board to do some strategic planning and we took the early part of 2022 to hold a series of meetings facilitated by past-president Jenny Trautman where we thought through where we are and where we want to go.

We came out of that process with a clear sense that our focus should be on serving members. Over the years we thought of the IFVP in two ways: as a host of the field's development (especially through the yearly conferences), and as a way for members to become known and found (through the profiles, blogs, event postings and searchable map). With the advent of the IFVP Institute as a separate nonprofit focused on the educational, charitable and scientific development of visual practice, IFVP itself is now free to focus on member value as a professional association.  This led us to the following 

We serve IFVP members. 

1. Our members are: Individuals, Agencies, In-house employees 
2. Our Purpose: As an international organization,  IFVP energizes authentic  connections for a generous global community of visual practitioners by  enhancing professional and learning development through collaboration and valuable resources. 
3. Our Mission: We are committed to energizing authentic connections for a  generous global community of  visual practitioners by enhancing  professional and learning  development through collaboration  and valuable resources.

Our initial work right now is focused on generating a clear sense of who our current and potential members are (through persona development), becoming clear about our value proposition for each of these, and then focusing our membership and communication activities around them. At the same time we will be working to form a regional advisory council to help the board of directors stay current with the state of developments globally. We are also working on our own goverance processes to put in place current financial and board policies, processes and procedures.

All of this puts us in a great place as we gather in Bilbao for our first IFVP Global Summit, looking ahead to the IFVP Regional Gatherings in 2023 and our second IFVP Global Summit in 2024. We will be bringing an application process to Bilbao for those who want to bring proposals for those future meetings.

Our field is evolving, we are evolving, and we will continue to learn together how this wonderful practice and community can co-create the emerging future. Thanks for being part of it!