Early last year, the NYSWA board of directors made an important decision to transfer
membership development efforts from a board-led initiative to a committee-focused one. This new structure elevated the level of importance the organization placed on membership and revenue to further the funding available for member programs and contributions to charitable organizations.

As a nonprofit, NYSWA is committed to raising revenue to host member events, education
programming, and to support partners such as the SUNY Impact Foundation and Warriors 4 Wireless. By increasing engagement from the current membership base – and building new members via recruitment efforts – NYSWA can increase the funds available to support these initiatives.

“It’s a misconception that NYSWA collects revenue from members to fund the organization,” said Tom Wiseman, chair of the Membership and Revenue Committee. “As a nonprofit, we aren’t in business to gain anything from dues or event registrations. Everything we do is focused on one thing – giving back. Whether that be to the membership through events and program aimed at helping advance careers, information sharing, and knowledge, or to the charities that are critical to our mission.”

The Membership and Revenue Committee’s purpose speaks for itself – ‘to ensure the future growth of NYSWA by increasing engagement, new memberships, and revenue for the association.’ This goes hand-in-hand with the association’s overall commitment to contribute to charities that help to perpetuate the industry with an experienced and trained workforce. As revenues grow, so do the quality of the programs and the speakers contracted at NYSWA events. And, with such a high-level of focus on quality programming and education, attendance naturally grows which allows the committee to bring in additional revenue and build charitable donations.

The current Membership and Revenue committee is comprised of five individuals: Tom
Wiseman at the helm, along with Denise Reed, Leslie Snyder, Chris Darr, and Mike Jones.
Collectively, they serve as the voice of NYSWA to raise awareness of the organization’s
purpose and goals. Those goals? They’re lofty, and demonstrative of how critical the committee is to the future of the association.

This year, you can expect to see the committee focusing in four key areas:

• Enhancing communications by improving contact with members and non-members to drive engagement and recruitment efforts.
• Building a member-facing company directory categorized by service to enhance member-to-member networking.
• Featuring company spotlights to highlight services performed by member companies to drive relationship-building.
• Increasing funding for the SUNY Impact Scholarship Program to build additional opportunities for the younger generation to pursue a career in wireless.

Wiseman says that joining NYSWA is like belonging to a family. “When you become a member,” he continues, “you connect with companies of common interests and goals. The events educate you on new topics relating to New York telecom, keep you apprised of what’s happening in the industry, and have an unparalleled social component. NYSWA events are really where you get to know your counterparts, build contacts and have fun.”

The Membership and Revenue Committee is always looking for individuals interested in helping build these opportunities and welcome new members to serve. If you would like to be a part of the future of NYSWA, and help drive donations to two incredible organizations for our industry, make sure to forward your interest form to Tom.