Guest Blogger: Debbie Bradley, Group Account Director, Zadro Agency.

Recently I have been working with numerous Associations and not-for-profits on strengthening their member communications. The same questions arise over and over again:

1. How do we better retain and engage our members?

2. How do we acquire new members?

Members are, of course, at the very core of why Associations exist and therefore if you can create a strong membership base this is the very crux for future success. The best way to create strategies to retain and engage your members and acquire new members is to ask the following questions:

1. Who are my members?

a. What are their demographics?

b. What jobs do they do?

c. What are their roles in their organisation?

d. Are they a company or an individual?

This information will help you profile and segment your audience. It is likely there are a number of different membership groups that your organisation may serve for instance: student, active career members, and life-time members – therefore you should segment and discover how many of these members you have already and also which is the most valuable to your organisation in the future.

2. What reason do they have to engage with my organisation?

a. What are their workplace challenges?

b. What are their training and education needs?

c. Do they want advocacy or representation in the macro environment?

d. Do they want to network and connect with their industry peers?

e. Are they looking for thought-leadership, advice and/or tools to help them better do their jobs?

f. Are they looking to us to help them further their career?

Here is where you can start thinking about what you offer your members and how much they value your service? Again you will need to look at different member segments and decide if they want different things from you - segmentation is key. An example would be that new entries to the industry may want different levels of education, while active career members may be looking for networking events rather than training.

3. Where do they do business?

a. How do they engage with us?

b. What type of communications channels do they use?

c. Is their business on social media for work?

d. Do they like email newsletters?

e. How do they engage with media – newspapers, digital media, trade magazines?

f. What other activities and wider stakeholders do they connect with?

Answering these questions will help you understand the types of communication channels that are relevant for your audience. If you have a younger demographic they may no longer want to receive a print journal or publication, they may want digital messages. However the reverse may also be true – your printed publication may be very valid for some audiences and therefore creates a great add value for members.

Once you have fully understood your audience you can begin to establish a strong product and service offering and also demonstrate membership benefits and value.

The next step to engaging your audience is to create solid membership offerings and communications. Make three lists:

1. The products and services you provide to members
   
2. The products and services you provide to non-members
   
3. The benefits of being a member of your organisation

Creating these three simple lists will clarify exactly what you offer and don’t offer your members and wider customers. It will also help clarify what your key membership benefits are so you can clearly communicate to your audience the value of joining your organisation.

In conclusion

You now know who your members are, what they want and how they like to be communicated with. By ensuring your products and services are tailored to what professionals in your industry need this will present a strong value proposition for future membership growth.

If your communications and value proposition are membership centric then you are well on your way to successfully retaining, engaging and acquiring new members.

About Zadro Agency

Zadro are an integrated communications agency working with Association and Not-for-Profit organisations across Australia and specialising in strategic planning, member research and surveys, marketing, public relations, branding and graphic design.

If you want to activate a member marketing strategy today then call Zadro on 02 9212 7867 or email debbie@zadroagency.com.au.

AuSAE has welcomed new members from the following organisations this month.

Is your organisation on this list? If your organisation is on this list as an AuSAE organisational member but you are unsure if you are part of the membership bundle, please contact the friendly AuSAE team at info@ausae.org.au.

Not on this list? To join AuSAE today please visit our membership information page here.

New members are great, but as you know, they can be hard to find. So where, oh where is the best place to look? Here are five places we recommend:

1. Start with your current members

When looking to recruit new members, always start with your current member base. Do you have any upcoming meetings or events? Encourage your members to invite their friends/colleagues. Word-of-mouth marketing is the BEST weapon against obscurity.

2. Reach out to companies within your industry

Companies within your industry are a GREAT resource for you. Consider reaching out to them (via phone or email - your choice) and seeing if they’d be willing to work with you. You could either go by their office and drop off a few flyers or send them a promotional flyer via email and encourage them to share it with their employees. Since your association helps advance the profession, many companies are more than willing to help out.

3. Stay active on social media

An active presence on social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) is good for multiple reasons. First, tweets now show up in Google desktop search results, so the more you tweet, the better it is for search engine optimization. Second, an active social media presence gives your organization credibility, which is huge when it comes to online member recruitment.

4. Take advantage of events

Events are a great way to engage your organization’s membership, but did you know they’re also a great way to grow your organization’s membership? By following a few best practices (planning an event with value, bundling event registration and membership, simplifying the non-member event registration process, etc.), you can actually maximize the impact of your events. (More about that here.)

5. Work your website

Your website is a HUGE tool for online member acquisition. People are constantly searching for information online, so if you provide valuable content on your organization’s website, people are more likely to be driven to your page. And if they see value on your page, they’ll see value in your organization (Helloooo new member!).

Now the “work your website” process is actually a little more complicated than that, but definitely still doable! For a list of next steps/best practices, check out our free guide to Online Member Acquisition below!

This article was originally sourced from memberclicks and written by Callie Walker.

As the biggest expense in B2B marketing budgets, events are an integral part of the go-to-market strategy for most companies. While many marketing teams use events, strategies vary widely from company to company. The term “event marketing” is used to describe everything from promoting a huge conference to hosting a customer dinner, making it tough to pin down what event marketing should mean for B2B marketers. To get a better picture of what your event strategy should look like, it helps to look at the definition, goals, and types of B2B event marketing.

What is B2B Event Marketing?

To understand what event marketing means to B2B marketers, let’s look at a couple definitions of the term:

“Event marketing is the activity of designing or developing a themed activity, occasion, display, or exhibit…to promote a product, cause, or organization. Also called event creation.” – Business Dictionary. 

That definition is pretty broad and can apply to any type of event marketing. It zeros in on the design or development of events instead of just the marketing of an event. Beyond that, we know that B2B events require more than just the creation of the event itself. There is a lot more strategy involved.

“Event marketing describes the process of developing a themed exhibit, display, or presentation to promote a product, service, cause, or organization leveraging in-person engagement.” –Marketo

The “in-person engagement” part of that description is important. B2B event marketing is most successful when it takes full advantage of the opportunity to connect with customers and prospects in-person.

At Attend, we’ve defined a new type of event marketing specifically for B2B called Revenue Event Marketing (check out our Complete Guide To Revenue Event Marketing), which focuses on using in-person events to build and accelerate pipeline and ultimately drive revenue. It’s all about getting the right people to attend, maximizing the opportunity for in-person interactions with your sales team, following up and tracking ROI.

What are the major goals of B2B event marketing?

Here are six common event goals for B2B marketers:

Customer engagement

Events are a great way to connect with customers and strengthen relationships that boost retention, upsells, and advocacy. Whether you are providing education on your product, thought leadership in the your industry, or simply showing appreciation to your customers with a VIP event experience.

Lead Generation

While 80% of marketers list lead generation as the primary objective of their event programs (Regalix), new research from Forrester suggests that using events to “find buyers” isn’t the most effective strategy

Brand awareness

Sponsoring a big booth at a conference or hosting a big party filled with attendees from your target accounts can definitely help you raise awareness of your brand, but remember that it’s ultimately face-to-face interactions that will help you drive revenue!

Education

Events have been ranked as the #1 Content Marketing tactic by CMI for the past 5 years. They give you a chance to get your message across to a highly engaged audience without the usual online distractions.

Pipeline Creation and Acceleration

Event marketing has the biggest potential to help companies build and accelerate sales pipeline. Focusing on creating opportunities with your target accounts will help you boost your ROI. Events are also an excellent tactic for moving deals deals forward that are stuck in your pipeline.

What Types Events Do B2B Marketers Use?

There are a lot of options for types of events to include in your strategy, but here are five popular options:

Tradeshow and conference sponsorships

While tradeshow sponsorships may not be the most effective event marketing tactic, they aren’t going anywhere. There will always be tradeshows that your company needs to sponsor since you are expected to have a presence there.

The biggest takeaway for effective tradeshow sponsorship is that they require just as much strategic planning as hosting your own event. You need to make sure you are only sponsoring the tradeshows that your target audience actually attends and develop a strategy for getting the most face time possible with your top prospects.

Dinner / lunch / breakfast events

Inviting a select group of customers and/or prospects to restaurant for a meal is an excellent way to strengthen relationships and accelerate deals. This can work well around larger events as an opportunity get more face time.

Depending on the size of the group you want to be there, you can have a presentation during the meal or just give sales time to talk with their contacts. Either way, it’s important to arrange seating so you have people from your company spread out to maximize your ability to chat with attendees.

Roadshows

Hosting one event is great, but you need a full strategy to scale it. Developing a roadshow strategy is the perfect way to scale your hosted event strategy and engage your target accounts across the country. A series of roadshows reaches a large group of high quality prospects and customers.

A roadshow that takes place in your prospect’s own city is a much lower level of commitment than traveling to your annual conference, but still a huge form of engagement. Investing even two hours to attend an event in-person is a LOT of engagement.

Customer events

Hosting an annual customer conference provides a great way to keep your customers educated on industry best practices and your product. Many B2B companies have transformed their customer events into industry events that provide thought leadership in addition to customer-specific content.

These events can vary a lot in size. Some have over ten thousand attendees (HubSpot’s INBOUND) while other aim to attract numbers in the hundreds (Wistia’s Wistiafest). No matter what size your event is, what matters is that you provide useful content relevant to your audience and give your sales team the time to engage with attendees in-person.

Micro events

Industry events are still a great place to find a high concentration of your target audience in one place, but it’s hard to predict booth traffic and even harder to have an in depth sales conversation on the trade show floor. Hosting your own micro event is a great way to engage directly with your target prospects and customers around a conference. Check out this story of two different types of micro events around marketing conferences in Las Vegas.

You’re often better off cutting back on your conference sponsorship to focus on a targeted micro event like a cocktail hour, dinner,or after party to get more face time with the prospects and customers that matter most.

Events should be a key part of your B2B marketing strategy. To make sure you are getting the most out of them, download our free Event ROI Handbook. Are there other types of events you include in your marketing strategy? Let us know!

This article was originally sourced from Business 2 Community and was written by Garrett Huddy.

What costs employers $300 billion per year? Workplace stress. According to the American Institute of Stress, workplace stress can cost employers more than $300 billion annually in medical care, turnover, absenteeism, and diminished productivity.

That staggering number, coupled with the health problems that stress causes, is a major motivator to try to cut down on job stress.

Associations, unfortunately, are no strangers to stress and the problems it causes. With a full slate of member communication, board, dues management, acquisition and retention responsibilities associations often experience high turnover, and many have stressed staff.

Data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) even found that up to 40% of workers report that their job is extremely stressful, and more than a quarter of workers say they are often stressed or burnt out at work.

To reduce these numbers and improve employee satisfaction and retention, it’s important for association executives to understand the source of job stress, and take steps to alleviate it.

What Causes Job Stress?

According to the CDC, “job stress results when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker.”

Disconnects between workers and their skills, the tools they use every day, and their own personal needs, are usually unintentional. Maybe your industry shifted, or your association started using a new membership management system, and your staff didn’t quite keep pace.

The bad news is that these changes will never fully go away. The good news is that associations can keep up with them and reduce employee stress with a few simple, everyday practices.

Let’s look at four easy ways association executives can relieve employee stress.

4 Ways to Reduce Staff Stress in Your Association

Method #1) Find the Right Tools

Your employees can’t do their jobs and provide value for your members without the right tools. Making your employees try to do too much with too little can cause problems. In a study from the University of Plymouth, workers listed a lack of equipment and resources as one of the top reasons why they felt stressed at work.

It’s essential that your employees have everything they need, like an AMS platform, event system, member database, and email engine, among others. Despite being necessary, however, all these different systems can get tangled up and potentially even cause more stress when employees have to manually maintain and transfer data between your different tools. Whenever possible, try to reduce this problem by consolidating systems.

For instance, many associations are implementing all-in-one membership management solutions that provide all the tools and services employees need without adding stress. That usually means a system that’s affordable, allows data to flow seamlessly, and has excellent customer support, so no one stresses out if a sudden problem comes up.

Method #2) Train Your Employees

The value of ongoing training is often underestimated. Not only does ongoing training make your staff more skilled and efficient, it also helps alleviate workplace stress. Along with the need for proper tools, the University of Plymouth found that another top reason workers felt stressed was a lack of “adequate training to do the job.”

Ongoing training on technology platforms such as your association management software, industry shifts, and member needs will help employees keep up with the changes your organization goes through. As they gain the skills they need to succeed and learn more about your association and its tools, employees will become more confident and less stressed over job-related tasks.

Method #3) Communicate and Delegate

Encourage your employees to express concern, ask questions, and communicate scheduling issues. If someone needs help, or has expertise to offer, they should be comfortable speaking up.

When employees feel that their thoughts and opinions, including their concerns, are heard, then they feel like they have a say in the organization and their jobs. That’s a great way to reduce stress and make your staff feel valued, so be sure there’s open communication between you and your entire team.

Make the most of your employees’ and volunteers’ abilities by delegating as well. Your association has a wealth of experts, from staff members to committee volunteers and technology providers. Use them. Delegating projects or breaking them up into pieces for different team members to complete will help you accomplish your tasks faster and more efficiently. The teamwork will also foster positive interpersonal relationships between staff members, further reducing stress.

Just think. If you empower your members to plan events, let your staff oversee retention campaigns, and use your AMS provider’s association management services for technical maintenance, then you’ve drastically reduced your daily task list – and your stress.

Method #4) Recognize Achievement

Once you’ve started an ongoing conversation with staff, make sure to keep the lines of communication open and build on positive staff experiences. Recognizing the achievements of your association and individual staff members is one way to do this. According to the Mayo Clinic, positivity is a major stress reducer. By highlighting initiatives that have gone well and valuable staff contributions, you create a positive work environment.

Pointing out achievements ensures that you don’t fall into the trap of being a manager that’s “forever finding fault” – another of the stressors listed in the University of Plymouth study.

Start by telling staff when your association achieves a major milestone and pointing out how employees helped you do it. Take things a step further by congratulating employees who complete big projects, or whose work clearly makes an impact. Your recognition shows staff that their contributions are valued.

Bonus Tip: Prioritize

The projects that cause the most stress are often the ones that are most important. Many experts believe that the key to relieving that stress is to prioritize effectively. The most important tasks should be completed first, with less essential projects done later. By finishing the important project first, employees will relieve the stress that comes with them.

Relieving Stress Takeaway

Stress might be inevitable in today’s quickly changing, multitasking world, but there are ways to reduce its impact on your association’s staff and create a positive, productive environment. Help your team get the tools and skills they need to do their jobs well, and foster an open, positive environment where everyone can contribute, build relationships, and feel valued.

These everyday practices will reduce stress, trickling down over time to have a positive impact on productivity, work quality, and employee retention.

This article was originally sourced from Socious and was written by Julie Dietz.

Despite popular sentiment that millennials are disinterested in joining traditional professional associations, young people are uniquely positioned to benefit from association membership in important ways. Many of the things millennials (those born between 1980 and 2000) value most, including connection, collaboration and community outreach, can be integral aspects of membership.

Recent research from Naylor’s Association Communications Benchmarking Survey suggests that more than half (56 percent) of associations admit they have trouble engaging young professionals, and 55 percent of associations have trouble customizing their communications for different member sub-groups. However, this disconnect can be overcome if association professionals better understand the motivations of millennials and are willing to target their marketing campaigns to attract them.

Don’t make the mistake of lumping all millennials together or thinking they’re not joiners. 

Your online presence should be professional, in step with the times, and most of all, authentic. 

Millennials are a natural fit for associations—they value social and professional networking, personal branding, growth and community outreach. 

Here are five reasons why millennials join associations and five ways associations can attract and retain millennial members:

Five reasons why millennials join associations

1. Networking: Opportunities for networking abound within professional associations, and millennials tend to value the chance to make new personal and professional connections. millennials are used to blending work and social life, and associations and events provide ways to connect with both peers and industry leaders. Unlike the individualistic Generation X, born into the tumult of the 1960s and 1970s, young people today are joiners. In my experience, we want to be part of a group that is working toward something meaningful and bigger than ourselves. The value we place on collaboration and teamwork, combined with our desire to make a difference, heightens our interest in connecting to a community of people with shared interests and common goals.

2. Gaining new skills: In addition to connecting with new people, millennials are keen on discovering new opportunities for individual learning and growth. In spite of their reputation as apathetic and entitled, today’s young people, like those of previous generations, are motivated, optimistic, and forward thinking. Millennials looking to learn new things and accelerate their professional development can find ample support within professional associations.

According to Matthew Harrington of New Directions Consulting, the number one post-recession career plan for millennials is to enhance their skill set. While millennials are working at their entry-level day jobs, associations can offer practical lessons on the side—like strategic thinking and public speaking—that are useful stepping stones toward a dream career.

3. Educational and professional resources: millennials love to learn. As Bravetta Hassley of Chief Learning Officer explains, “millennials are hankering for development… and learning is in a prime position to keep millennial talent from heading out the door.” Associations provide access to an abundance of members-only resources that are attractive to young people trying to expand their skill sets and establish a career trajectory. These professional resources make association membership a valuable tool for personal branding. millennials are enthusiastic about personal branding, which describes how people market themselves and their careers as brands.

For example, my peers and I groom our Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr pages daily as a form of self-expression. Taking cues from pop culture, we recognize the power and importance of cultivating a recognizable and unique image of ourselves to advertise to the world. This interest in personal branding extends to the professional sphere as well. Associations give millennials a valuable opportunity to work on personal branding and career advancement.

4. Jobs: Of special importance to millennials is finding satisfying and well-paying jobs, as many of us are saddled with college debt and struggling to find a career that matches our skills with our passions—and still pays the bills. Associations often offer members-only job listings that can help companies tap into the immense talent and insight of young people. As an added bonus, members of associations may have a leg up in the hiring process as some companies find that candidates who belong to associations are pre-vetted in a sense and more serious about their careers.

5. Community outreach: Millennials have been dubbed “The Giving Generation” because we are very likely to participate in charity work and view donations as investments in causes we care about. Research shows that millennials are likely to engage in company giving, so if associations participate in community outreach efforts, there’s a good chance this will be a plus for young people thinking about becoming members.

Five ways associations can attract and retain millennials better

1. Market your association as mission-focused. Millennials have a desire to make a difference. We need to feel that the work we’re doing has real value and that associations support issues or provide services we believe in. Associations should try to project an atmosphere that emphasizes innovation and teamwork, with an end goal of contributing to society in a positive and important way.

2. Flexibility and affordability are essential. Many young people are in debt, and with endless free opportunities for social networking online, it is essential that associations set membership prices as low as possible and make joining worth our time and money. In-person connection is valuable for building quality relationships, but some young people simply cannot afford the cost of membership and are forced to stick with online networking. Rethinking your revenue model to break down—or at least lower—the cost barrier is one way to make your association more accessible and more attractive to young people.

3. Interact with millennials in a meaningful, authentic way. Learn to master social media and become technologically innovative. Avoid, however, coming off as trying too hard to be “hip” or using too much internet lingo. Your online presence should be professional and in step with the times, engaging your younger audience in a way that feels natural. Be intentional, not aggressive, with your tech strategy.

4. Make your association’s events interactive and fun. Emphasize hands-on activities and collaborative learning. Cultivate an atmosphere at your events that fosters creativity and camaraderie; make your events a place that is welcoming for young people and offers a variety of experiences, from mentoring programs to workshops to entertaining learning labs.

5. Avoid stereotyping. When it comes to millennials—a group of more than 80 million people—we are not a lazy, tech-obsessed monolith. Rather, millennials have unique perspectives and skills that make us great assets to professional organizations. Simply get to know us and value us as part of your association, and a mutually beneficial relationship is sure to develop.

In many ways, millennials are a natural fit for associations. They value social and professional networking, personal branding and growth, and community outreach, all of which are well within the function of professional organizations. If associations market themselves in a way that is accessible, inviting and low-cost, millennials are more likely to become members. And once associations start gaining the membership of millennials, a positive feedback loop develops. Young people want to be involved in groups with their peers; the more young people an association has within its ranks, the more young people will want to join, and the stronger your association will become.

This article was originally sourced from Associations Advisor.

When it comes to growth, making sure your board has practical steps and defined metrics will make the process more strategic.

Growth helps keep the lights on and, perhaps more important, it speaks to the relevance of your organization and industry in today’s changing marketplace. Yet, because it can mean a lot of things—from new members and additional revenue to increased net assets or reserves—using growth alone as a board directive can be risky. Growth goals must come with strategy, which includes tactical outlines, smart executions, and measurements of the result.

As association executives, we all strive for strategic board governance. We want board members who have a vision for the future of our industry and for the role of our association in it, based on our members. When you don’t have a strategic board established and want to tackle your growth goals, consider starting with these four steps.

STRATEGIZE

First, have your board conduct a self-assessment. Chief executives rate boards that have done so as more effective (55 percent) than those that have not (38 percent), according to the 2007 Governance Index. After you let the board digest its assessment results, use that knowledge to create an environment of accountability. Work with consent agendas and give the overly detailed work, which can get in the way of larger strategy, to smaller committees.

IDENTIFY YOUR FUTURE

Your board must work within your strategic pillars and the goals that define success for each pillar. When you have clear tactics for each pillar, you will be more prepared to lead board members in talks about what success means to you.

DEFINE SUCCESS

By creating tactics for each pillar, you’ll also be able to set up defined metrics for each pillar, which will lead to measurable results (e.g., X percent increase in net revenue over X years, X number of new strategic partnerships, X percent membership growth). Outline and document each tactic your committees will employ to stay focused on the designated goals. Be sure this is clear so the committee work is purposeful and driven by results.

MEASURE

The final step is the most important: Measure results against your defined metrics and deliver information to your board at the most strategic level. Keep board members’ focus on the pillars identified early in the process. Don’t let them evaluate the tactics. Keep them out of the weeds and focused on the long-term success of the organization and your strategic plan.

When we hear about associations experiencing year-over-year exponential growth, the common factor in every case is strategic board governance. When you employ these four steps, your board will be operating more strategically in no time.

How often do you talk about cultural alignment with your people? How could you integrate that into performance reviews?

This article was originally sourced from Associations Now.

I have written a lot about the need to design our organisations around the needs of the employees. I see this as part of a digital mindset that we need to be adopting if we want our associations to thrive in the 21st century. The world has changed (permanently) and individuals are expecting us to run the organisation and meet their needs at the same time. So we should.

That being said, I don’t want to imply that organisations should just pander to the needs of every single employee. While I like the customisation and the long-overdue focus on employees, I also firmly believe that organisations should have clear and intentional cultures. It’s a line in the sand, and something the organisation should defend, which means ultimately it’s not an either/or of employee-first or organisation-first. Instead, there should be an alignment between the individuals and the organisation around those cultural ideals.

So yes, we should be supporting our individual employees to develop and grow as leaders based on their unique individual needs, but we must also recognise that their unique and individual growth needs may actually grow them right out of our organisation.

Zappos is getting a lot of attention for their adoption of the holacracy system of self-management. About a year into rolling it out, they realised that not every individual who worked there was really cut out for self management, so they offered three month’s severance pay to anyone who wanted to leave, and 14% of their people left. That’s cultural clarity. It’s not that those 14% were poor performers. They just didn’t align with self-management, which is a cultural pillar at Zappos. They got clear that trying to “develop” those individuals in ways that was fundamentally misaligned with where they were headed was a mistake.

We need the discipline in our organisations to get clear like that and have the tough conversations with individuals who are not aligned. It means more people need to quit, and it means more people need to be “coached out” (no one wants to say “fired” any more). These separations are a good thing. It is called “good turnover” by some of the organizations I’ve studied, and I think it’s a natural part of healthy systems.

But in associations we tend to value loyalty, even it if is blind loyalty. Just like for our members, we proudly distribute trophies for working 10, 15, or 25 years at the same organization, without ever once evaluating if there is a clear cultural alignment. We need to change this.

And the first place you’ll start changing this is in your performance review system. I’ve got a whole month of posts about performance reviews coming up in the fall, so I won’t go into too much detail now, but performance management conversations should be tackling the individual/culture alignment issue. It’s not about rating the employee as a 5 or a 4. It’s about letting them get clear what direction they are headed in and then making sure that aligns with what the organisation needs. When there is alignment, the performance of the system goes up, and that’s what “performance” reviews should be about.

How often do you talk about cultural alignment with your people? How could you integrate that into performance reviews?

This article was originally sourced from Association Success and was written by Jamie Notter.

New guidance issued by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) will make it easier for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to access the superannuation system, the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) said today.

AIST Executive Manager, Governance & Stewardship, Eva Scheerlinck said that the guidance encourages funds to look at more flexible approaches to identification requirements – including accepting alternative forms of identification where possible.

“Currently, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have difficulty accessing their superannuation benefits due to the rigid structure of identification requirements – many of which can be difficult to access,” said Ms Scheerlinck. “Promoting flexibility is an important step in creating a more inclusive superannuation system that caters to all members.”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face many challenges in accessing superannuation including verification of identity, communication and literacy issues, different cultural practices and relationships, and life expectancy differences.

Identification problems for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people start at birth – with many births not recorded in the official register resulting in no birth certificate being available. Changing of names and incorrect recording of birth dates or spelling of names has also proved challenging for First Australians when trying to prove their identity.

Ms Scheerlinck said the guidance was developed in consultation with the financial services sector and other Australian Government agencies.

“While there are still a number challenges for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in regards to superannuation and retirement outcomes, this work is evidence that with a collaborative approach

between Government, industry and those experiencing difficulties with accessing their superannuation, some of barriers around super and identification can be removed,” said Ms Scheerlinck.

Further media enquiries: AIST Media and Content officer, Sarah Goodwin 0401 769 296

AIST is the peak industry body for the $650 billion not-for-profit super sector which includes industry,

corporate and public sector funds.

This media release was sourced directly from AIST.

AMA FAMILY DOCTOR WEEK, 24 - 30 July 2016

Your Family Doctor: Invaluable to your health

Family Doctor Week is the AMA’s annual celebration of the hard work and dedication of Australia’s GPs – your family doctors.

Each year, the AMA reminds the community of the vital role played by local family doctors in keeping Australians healthy.

Having a trusted family doctor is good for your health. People who have an ongoing relationship with a family doctor are shown to have better health outcomes.

This year, the theme for Family Doctor Week is Family Doctors: Invaluable to your health.

During Family Doctor Week, the AMA will issue media releases highlighting the vital role played by family doctors in preventative health, aged care, and end of life care, and raise contemporary health policy issues such as the Medicare rebate freeze and general practice training and funding.

The AMA encourages local media to make contact with family doctors in your town, suburb, or local community to hear their stories about the joys and the challenges of providing quality health care in your area.

State and Territory AMAs can help you find local family doctors. Please contact:

NSW Lachlan Jones, 02 9902 8113

Victoria Felicity Ryan, 03 9280 8753

Queensland Rachael Barr, 07 3872 2209

Western Australia Robert Reid, 08 9273 3018

South Australia Eva O’Driscoll, 08 8361 0106

Tasmania Ned Worledge, 03 6223 3333

ACT Peter Somerville, 02 6270 5410

NT Fiona Thomson, 08 8981 7479

Follow all the action on Twitter: #amafdw16, #nomedicarefreeze

This media release was sourced directly from AMA.