Read more to learn how the DNPs of Color is growing its community exponentially through effective communication and events.
DNPs of Color (DOC), is a 501c3 nonprofit nursing organization with a mission to serve doctors of nursing practice of color through networking, mentorship, and advocacy to increase diversity in doctoral studies, clinical practice, and leadership. The organization has been active since 2020 and its goal is to diversify the nursing profession at the doctoral nursing practice level. DNPs of Color is based in Alexandria, Virginia but operates nationwide.
The nursing organization is centered around networking, mentorship, and advocacy. Its primary goal is to create communities that support nurses who have or are aspiring to acquire their Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). Over the past year, the organization has hosted multiple educational programs focused on professional development, community mentoring opportunities and also hosted its first virtual conference that had over 200 registrants.
DNPs of Color is primarily a social media community with about 1,800 members who identify as people of color and have or are aspiring to get their Doctor of Nursing Practice. In 2022, DOCs is looking to transition into a member-based association where it will continue to solidify its foundation and garner more support for funding that will help expand and enhance the quality of its programs. This will help the association make a larger impact in supporting nurses of color who tend to be few and isolated in the nursing profession. Through mentorship and networking, the DOCs hopes to expand its community of nurses of color that will, in turn, expand its network and help strengthen the voice of the community.
Dr. Danielle McCamey, the Founder, CEO, and President of the DNPs of Color, proudly tells the story of how it has built its community with Glue Up and its ambitions for the coming year.
Successfully Managing a Fast-Growing Community With Glue Up
We began using Glue Up in March 2020 after identifying the need to start developing our community and creating a consistent way of communication. We were also looking for a platform to build our membership and events. We did an internet search and considered several CRM companies, including Glue Up. We chose Glue Up because we received outstanding customer service from our sales representative, who took the time to help us reach the decision. Glue Up’s price also met our budget and was willing to negotiate different packages that specifically met our needs. The team was also willing to work with us as we experimented with what works for us. The platform is intuitive and easy to use.
As Glue Up is a growing organization, we felt that we could also grow with the company and this has been evident in how Glue Up has continued to add features that we can look toward adding as our community grows. Additionally, Glue Up’s CRM has helped us manage our fast-growing more efficiently. In this regard, Glue Up’s event management software also helped us organize our events faster and more effectively. Furthermore, we could populate and schedule our campaigns in advance which also contributed to optimizing all our operations.
When we started using Glue Up, we had ten contacts. Now, we have over 1,000 contacts that Glue Up has helped us grow and maintain throughout the year. We also hit our 25,000 emails quota, which was a great milestone for us. So far, we have organized 10 events on the Glue Up platform and we are adding more features such as the Community Engagement Solution as our community continues to grow. We are also looking forward to using Glue Up's Speed Networking Software. We are thankful for Glue Up’s customer support in helping us learn the platform and solve any challenges we experienced.
Concerns about Glue Up
One of the concerns that came up was that because we were looking to become a more inclusive community, we were not sure how Glue Up compared to other companies that have had more experience dealing with small non-profit organizations. Additionally, when we began using Glue Up, we experienced a few glitches with some of the widgets and its payment platform that was, however, later ironed out thanks to the amazing support we received from the Glue Up team. We are now very satisfied with the platform and appreciate that Glue Up is adding a donor management system to the platform that we feel is an essential feature for our organization's needs.
Building An Online Community During the COVID-19 Pandemic
DNPs of Color is an organization of frontline workers. This meant that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were being stretched at different capacities as leaders. It was challenging to engage, and we could not focus on building our non-profit organization. However, Glue Up soon helped us get organized in that we pre-planned our campaigns and organized events in advance. This allowed us enough time to advertise our events using campaigns and have people register. The automatic event reminders also helped us keep our registrants engaged. Thanks to Glue Up, I only needed a couple of hours out of my stretched-out week to set up events and campaigns, and other activities in advance. Our organization became more efficient, and this helped us continue to build our community in a virtual environment using an online platform that made it easier for our members and team to engage.
Community-led Growth Powered By An All-In-One Engagement Management Ecosystem
Growing our contacts from ten to over one thousand in a year has been a great achievement for us. Streamlining our event registration process using the CRM and finance modules saves us a lot of time as we were initially using Google forms to collect event registrations and payments. Glue Up also provides data that helps us measure engagement, such as email opens and click rates. The automated membership applications also help monitor the growth of our organization. Having an all-in-one platform for event management, membership management, and email campaigns has transformed our organization and made us highly efficient.
A large part of our organization’s growth is attributed to our ability to build community and Glue Up has helped achieve this by streamlining our events and communication. As a community of people of color, we like to interact and connect often. Glue Up has helped us foster this culture through online events that have created opportunities for our members to be part of an online networking environment. Additionally, we have grown beyond word of mouth as more people notice us and join our private social media groups. Our community is engaged and interested because we can provide them with programs and events that relate to their current situations. We can offer our members the community support they need to thrive in their different positions and professions.
“I definitely recommend Glue Up to other non-profit organizations. Glue Up provides high-quality customer service and packages that can be customized to specifically meet your needs. Because Glue Up truly wants to see your organization become successful, the customer success team is very instrumental in helping you learn the platform and become more independent. As a result, we now work more efficiently, effectively and have quadrupled our member engagement and contact base since we signed on a year ago”.
Dr. Danielle McCamey, Founder, CEO, and President of the DNPs of Color
Transitioning to a Nursing Association to Better Represent Our Member Community
In Nursing, our members require representation and support from a nursing association to get a seat at the table. This is why we are making the change to a nursing association so that we can be fully representative of the voice of these specific nursing professionals - Doctors of Nursing Practice of Color. Having a membership backing will allow us to speak to key leaders, share our concerns and input in the evolvement and advancement of the nursing profession particularly in Doctor of Nursing Practice. We will continue to leverage Glue Up’s event management, campaigns, and membership management to help cultivate our membership growth and engagement. We plan to utilize Glue Up’s community capabilities to engage our member community, and leveraging Glue Up’s accessibility via mobile apps will help us keep us glued.
Glue Up is a leading all-in-one engagement management ecosystem that puts communities at the front and center of all our solutions. Member organizations and online communities are using Glue Up to make engagement more purposeful by making their communication, events, and membership management simple and efficient. Book a demo of Glue Up’s Membership Management software and start growing your community.
