Community
Friends and Colleagues –
May the New Year bring new opportunities, good health, peace, and prosperity to each and every one of you.
Reflecting on 2024, I realized that so many of my positive experiences were because of IAEM and the connections it has provided. I am thankful for our time together and look forward to another successful and fulfilling year in 2025.
This quarter's update includes the following:
The Health and Well-being of IAEM
Just as I did with the Fall 2024 update, I will start this quarter’s address by focusing on IAEM's health and well-being, including membership numbers, certification counts, our fiscal health, and group updates.
Membership - As of December 2024, IAEM has 6,218 total members, with 669 international members from our global councils and 418 students (globally). But numbers without context leave much to be desired. In comparison to previous years at this time, IAEM is 91 below our membership count.
Certifications - The association currently has 2,537 Certified Emergency Managers (CEMs) and 376 Associate Emergency Managers (AEMs), representing 53 states and territories and 28 countries. Of those, the association saw an increase of 244 CEMs this past year, with 92 receiving their certificate on stage in Colorado Springs. That number marked the largest cohort of AEM/CEMs receiving their certifications at the conference! I want to thank Jon Fessler, CEM commission chair, and Michelle Oblinsky, vice chair, for leading the commission this last year and helping our newest AEM/CEMs celebrate their accomplishments at the Broadmoor.
Financials – IAEM manages its largest financial transactions of the year after the conference, as conference expenses are paid in full. What’s important to note, however, is that our budget continues to see positive numbers, and the conference revenue helps our association grow by providing financial resources to other endeavors like committees, caucuses, and commissions. Looking at our reserves, IAEM is sitting at just about $2M, which continues to be a sign of good organizational health.
One of my goals as president was to evaluate the activity level of our groups regularly. Unlike caucuses, which self-determine their own special projects and activities each year, commissions and committees have long-standing tasks and activities they perform for the association. These are usually timebound and tied to large workflows, like the conference, the certifications, scholarships, and pending government laws and regulations. For these reasons, the evaluation of their activity level doesn’t equally apply, and it was excluded from this effort, which focuses only on caucuses.
As of December 2024, IAEM has 21 caucuses, and the Board recently approved a new caucus for county emergency managers to launch in 2025. While each caucus differs regarding a topic or focus area, most meet quarterly, while others meet bi-monthly or monthly. This activity level indicates consistent engagement and member involvement.
Conversely, some caucuses experience an extended lull in activity, sometimes lasting six months, a year, or longer. These lulls occur for various reasons, and in general, the IAEM-USA Board has been understanding, knowing that caucus leadership is a volunteer opportunity, and sometimes situations change unexpectedly. When evaluating the effectiveness of each caucus for 2024, the focus was on the groups that had extended lulls in activity.
Why is it important to review each group’s activity levels? Isn’t it ok to have as many groups as possible? Doesn’t that make people feel more welcome to find a group they can relate to?
Candidly speaking, the answers to these questions all come down to member benefits and return on investment. Many IAEM members join the association to be part of groups, whether for information sharing, knowledge exchange, or networking purposes. There have been member complaints about inactive groups, questioning the value of IAEM’s groups and, therefore, questioning the value of IAEM. If group activity lulls for an extended period of time, members see it as a benefit that isn’t a benefit at all. Outside of the annual conference (also considered an opportunity to share information, exchange knowledge, and network), these groups offer our members a consistent, enriching experience. And for those unable to attend the conference, this may be their only touchpoint with the association throughout the year.
Therefore, it is vitally important that our groups remain effective, active, and meaningful for our members. So, to help with the analysis, in late October, IAEM staff accounted for each group’s activity rate since the 2023 conference. In that analysis, included:
Upon reviewing the data, it was clear that many of our groups are very active, and I hope that our members are benefiting from these activities and networking opportunities. However, a few groups met only once, or not at all, since 2023, so I focused much of my attention on these. After exchanging correspondence with group leadership, the board decided to sunset one caucus due to no group activity for over a year, and two other caucuses were asked to create a more robust engagement plan for 2025 to increase their activity level.
Looking ahead, I have begun working with IAEM staff, the Board, and group leadership to convey my group expectations for 2025. While I know each group is different, I firmly believe that active groups provide a benefit to you, our members, as well as a return on your annual dues investment. Because of that, I have outlined the following requirements for all our caucuses for 2025:
In early fall 2025, I will request a new data pull from IAEM staff to help the incoming president re-evaluate each group’s effectiveness for 2026. I hope the IAEM-USA Board will continue this data-driven approach to ensure each group is active and successful.
Finally, if a caucus sunsets due to inactivity, members are always welcome to submit a new proposal to form a new caucus under the same name or topic. However, in the new proposal, an engagement or activity plan for the upcoming year would need to ensure an increase in the activity level for our members’ benefit.
In case you haven’t heard, the IAEM 2024 Annual Conference in Colorado Springs was a massive success! As I shared via social media, the conference broke every major record in the association’s history. We had 2,562 registrants, 150 exhibitors, 38 pre-/post-conference trainings, seminars, workshops, and symposiums, and 105 breakout sessions. If you couldn’t attend, please visit the event website for a recap of the events, pictures, and available presentation slides.
The IAEM-USA Conference Committee is already hard at-work planning the 2025 Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. The call for speakers is scheduled to go live between January 10 and February 14, 2025, and announcements will be pushed via email, social media, and the IAEM website. Please stay tuned and consider submitting a proposal to speak.
Late winter and early spring are gearing up to be busy with board retreat and advocacy month planning.
Fun fact. Do you know that the IAEM-USA Board of Directors, Global Board, and Conference Committee convene annually in early spring for in-person working sessions? During this time, the USA and Global boards conduct their board retreats, and the Conference Committee typically spends this time finalizing the virtual conference and reviewing speaker submissions for the Annual Conference.
The IAEM-USA Board retreat agenda is largely up to the discretion of the sitting president, in close coordination with the executive committee and IAEM staff. This year, while some of the details have yet to be fleshed out, I intend to focus some of our time on:
By focusing on our international components, I hope to begin bridging the gap between the USA Council and our international counterparts. While each Council operates individually under the Global Board umbrella, I believe our IAEM-USA Council membership would benefit from learning about the international disaster management landscape from our colleagues abroad. Through these efforts, I plan to work with IAEM staff and the Global Board on ways to showcase and highlight international emergency management stories and lessons learned to members in the United States. I expect to share more details about this in the coming months. Still, I am hopeful we will expand our knowledge base by gaining more exposure to international disaster management concepts.
I hope you enjoyed this quarter’s State of the Association Address! As always, I welcome your feedback at USAPresident@iaem.com.
In Service,
Carrie