By Jeff Young, Program Quality Director
I’ve received quite a few questions about the newly redesigned Incentives list, which I will try and answer in this brief article.
Q: Why are the incentives so much different?
A: There were too many incentives being carried over from year to year, so we decided to start from scratch. We began with the things that best aligned with the District Mission statement.
Q: Why is there such a big focus on DCP points for Incentives?
A: Ideally, we should be working towards Distinguished Club Program (DCP) points because those are keyed to our progress in learning to be better speakers through Pathways, and building healthier clubs by getting trained.
Q: Where did the Open House Incentive go?
A: We removed it because we’ve redesigned the Open House to be closer to ‘running an excellent normal meeting’. We also shifted the allocation of funds that would have come from getting members from Open Houses to successfully gaining new members over the whole year, because you should be credited for getting new members anytime, not just from Open Houses.
Q: What do we need to file in the Incentive Tracker to get District Bucks?
A: A lot less than last year. We can monitor anything DCP-related from the dashboards and I’ll try and get things updated every Sunday, but will probably be closer to ‘once a fortnight.’ I’ve already given most folks the credit for things they’ve earned so far. If you think I’m missing adding an award for your club, the incentives can be filed by an officer and I’ll get the notification.
Q: Why are the goals for the incentives larger than the numbers required to get your DCP point for a goal?
A: The Incentives are tied to the Outstanding Club Award (OCA) and are designed to reward going above and beyond the minimums. The DCP was intended to highlight the results of your club’s achievements, rather than being a checklist for what you need to do.
Q: How do we get credit for the goals where the number is higher than the maximum value in the DCP goal?
A: I am looking at the ‘More’ style goals (such as ‘4 new members’ (for Goal #7), ‘4 more members’ (for Goal #8) as a pair, so when we award ‘5 new members’, the check is for ‘4’ in Goal #7 and ‘1’ in Goal #8, and we award ‘5 more new members’ with ‘4’ in Goal #7 and ‘6’ in Goal #8 (total of 10).
Q: Why are some of the dates pulled back earlier from last year?
A: We have a slightly more aggressive deadline to finish awarding District Bucks because of how we’re going to be merged with another District next year and need to close the books earlier than normal.
Q: Where are the Marketing Incentives?
A: They tend to change year over year; since we’re early in the year, we haven’t added them yet. Watch the Weekly Digest for new incentives.
Q: What’s this ‘Event’ Incentive?
A: Last year, my Open House Team and I redesigned the Open House Kit. This is the next iteration of that – a specialized club event that is open to the public and includes an outside speaker but also requires pre-approval before you run one.