Recognition gives connection

“My year as national chairman of JCI Netherlands was all about connection. Both externally, towards partners, stakeholders and sponsors, and internally towards members and alumni. The challenge was to keep our network well informed about all the activities and projects taking place locally, nationally and internationally in this still reasonable offline era. Because there was so much happening!”

“As a board, we were focused on the values that were important to our members. Often it’s about getting the core values of the organisation clear and using them as a starting point for your actions. But as an association, we felt that this did not go far enough. That we needed to get even closer to the skin of our members and find out what the essence of their membership was.”

“Besides the 4 pillars that JCI, a networking organisation for young entrepreneurial people, uses (Community, Training, Business & International), we found out that for us ‘connectedness’ was essential. Feeling deeply connected to a club, the members, the organisation, the partners, you name it. If we could stimulate that connection, name it more often and make it visible, our organisation would become stronger and benefit from it.”

“A sub-goal was to give JCI Netherlands more visibility through editorial marketing. By making deeper contact with media companies and publishers and making our activities known in the form of publications, we wanted to reach our target groups. Nowadays we call this ‘User Generated Content’, hahaha… But it proved difficult to get into the columns with an association like ours.”

“However, the publications that were created also found another outlet: in the MGZN developed by Nils Zelle. This magazine had a glossy look. It not only looked valuable; the variety of reports and regular features and fresh design also created a high quality. It was well read and then kept, for example on the reading tables in office waiting areas.”

“The look ensured that members were happy to contribute content. As a result, content creation went very smoothly. Another positive aspect was that sponsors were soon willing to advertise, so the magazine could be produced at low cost.”

“The magazine created a huge we-feeling. It created visibility for our members, especially those who were active behind the scenes. They were seen and got recognition for what they did for the club. Recognition is good for people’s motivation. It gives involvement, and thus connection. Exactly what we wanted.”