From Archaic to Efficient:
How One Association
is Advancing its
Election Process
American Library Association (ALA) is the world’s oldest and largest
library association. This vibrant organization actively promotes libraries and
library information to
enhance learning and ensure access to information. In addition, the
organization annually confers numerous highly visible book and media awards,
including the
Caldecott Medal and the Newbery Medal.
“There has to be a
better way”
ALA
is governed by an elected council
that oversees
many elected committees, divisions and roundtable groups. That translates to
more than 700 candidates on
various ballots
for the annual
ALA
election. Al
Companio (director) and Eileen Mahoney (purchasing manager) felt that there had
to be a better way to manage the increasingly complex
election process.
The cost of
mailing the paper ballots was rising with each election. As careful stewards of
the membership’s resources, Al and Eileen sought a way to increase efficiency
and save money, yet also continue to improve membership participation in the
annual election.
After interviewing several companies, Survey and Ballot
Systems emerged as the vendor that could best help
ALA realize its vision of having the
majority of its members vote via the web.
ALA is now on course to
achieve that goal. Since 2001, voters have increasingly opted to cast their
ballots electronically instead of using paper. And voter returns
are higher than
ever.
Partnering for
success
Al notes, "SBS has been a great partner to help us take our election process into the 21st century. We went from an archaic
system to one that is efficient and effective. Our members rely on us to bring value to the organization so that ALA can live out its mission. SBS helps our
election run like
clockwork – a key deliverable in an organization as large and complex as ALA."
“Many vendors say
they are an extension of you,” Eileen says, “but
SBS really is. As soon as one election is done, we begin work on
next year’s. SBS is right there with us, suggesting further improvement.” Al
agrees: “We know we can count on John Herzog, Bob Claus and the whole SBS team
to help keep our
election running smoothly.”
Al notes that the SBS team really listens to him and
Eileen, identifying what they need and then providing the creative solutions to
be successful. This includes bringing a best-practice approach, sharing insights
from how other associations and organizations conduct their elections to further
improve ALA’s
process. Eileen provides an example: “Since we started our online ballot, SBS has helped us edit it considerably to make the ballot easier to read and use."
Overcoming internal
resource challenges
Like any organization,
ALA experiences staff turnover… something
that can interfere with elections when handled internally. By outsourcing the
election process to SBS, Al says they no longer have to worry about
internal resource issues such as staff turnover that could impede an election’s
accuracy and timeliness.
Eileen says that ALA gets numerous inquiries from members
regarding their voting status. SBS provides a web-based tool that enables
staff to assist members quickly with their election questions. Eileen
reports that this saves her team considerable time in responding to the
inquiries individually.
Ensuring member
satisfaction
SBS, on behalf of ALA, conducts a member satisfaction survey
after each election – a valuable tool to identify ways to further enhance the
process. Members report that they appreciate the convenience of online voting.
Saving membership
resources
One of the real measures of success is the impact on
membership resources. Since working with SBS, ALA has seen a cost savings over producing
and mailing the volumes of voting information required for the paper ballots.
That savings will continue to grow as ALA realizes its goal of the majority of members voting online.
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