Are you a member of a corporate club? Has your club grown and continued to be supported within your organization? Or is membership declining and the management team does not recognize the value of your Toastmaster club and commitment?

The Corporate Club Advocate Program (CCAP) was designed to create awareness in promoting the value of Toastmasters in the corporate world. Out of 276 clubs in District 6, approximately 70% are either closed or open Corporate Clubs. We are fortunate that many organizations see the initial value of sponsoring a club which generally charters quickly and grows. It is often just as quick to decline rapidly due to the economy as people are downsized or doing multiple jobs. The club sponsor may no longer work at the company, or the executive who approved the funds, space or support is not aware of accomplishments or observes nothing has changed in their organization.

As Toastmasters we know individuals gain valuable skills in communication and leadership growth. Especially vital to the success of the corporate club is that we inform the executive leadership how Toastmasters can provide measurable results based on the organization’s mission, vision and values.

The CCAP is designed to outline key benefits that organizations can achieve with Toastmaster members attending regular meetings and practicing their skills. Often without the support of the organization’s leadership, membership declines or members sign up but don’t attend. As an advocate for the corporate clubs, my vision is to provide resources, materials and metrics to demonstrate what can be achieved in the corporate club environment.

Key steps to helping our district corporate clubs to demonstrate value to their organization include the following:

• Scheduling training and information sessions
• Posting resources and checklists to use and being available to meet with your corporate sponsors/leadership as support to provide resource to the organization
• Tools to identifying the organizations values and help define what success would look like to the
  organization leadership

The outcome is to sustain our corporate clubs with continued growth; articulate the goals from the organization leadership; ask for letters of recognition that promote the value to corporations and recognize organizations that support their corporate club(s).

Check out the links on the right side of this page, including resources, checklists and meetings to educate members where to look and how to strengthen their clubs. For more information, please contact Joan Watson, Corporate Club Advocate. Email toastmasterjoan@hotmail.com or call (651) 462-2983 (H) or (651) 270-8110 (C).