The AAUW Community Briefing

AAUW Current Topics Briefing #4
June 18, 2008

While each of us brings our own understanding of what AAUW membership means to us personally, there is another aspect to our membership that reflects our shared understanding of the AAUW community and why we are involved. It is this shared vision of ourselves that attracts others to join our community, and reinforces our own allegiance. This briefing is designed to address what it is to be a member of our shared AAUW community.

As we consider what it means to be a member of AAUW in the 21st century, let's use our Value Promise as a starting point:

By joining AAUW, you belong to a community that breaks through educational and economic barriers so that all women have a fair chance.

First, the Value Promise tells each member what she/he gets for her/his dues, i.e., the value of membership. Each of us gets a chance to break down particular barriers in a way that no individual alone is able to: through community. The Value Promise has been a wonderful way for us to think about ourselves as a nationwide community with a common commitment to breaking through educational and economic barriers in order to advance our shared value — a fair chance for all women.

Second, the Value Promise serves as a yardstick to measure whatever AAUW (at any level) does. When members decide to offer programming that breaks through our targeted barriers, we keep our Value Promise to members, potential members, collaborating organizations, the media, decision-makers and the general public.

Third, the Value Promise also provides us a useful communication vehicle to express our complex and challenging agenda to varied constituencies – a consistent elevator speech for our members.

What the Value Promise doesn't fully articulate, however, is the potential force behind this commitment – that is, the incredible power of 100,000 members in 1000 branches nationwide, all dedicated to breaking through these barriers so that all women have that fair chance that we believe is their right. So, how can we (each and all member/s) be that force?

To be members who contribute to this communal force, we need to see ourselves first and foremost as members of the entire organization. Too often, our experience and vision of AAUW is limited to our branch and/or state.

When we adjust our perspective to see ourselves as members of AAUW as a whole, each of us is more likely to

• Pay attention to, seek out, and engage in communication and Program at the organization/national level — thus aligning our efforts;
• Understand and abide by the wisdom of focusing on mission-based programming;
• Weave the commitment of our value promise into the fabric of all our activities;
• Routinely tap the resources of the AAUW website and members throughout the organization;
• Act on the imperative of each member recruiting and retaining members — every day in every way — comprehending that without "my effort," the organization can't survive.

To be members who contribute to this communal effort, we need to see ourselves as others see AAUW members — a powerful and influential nationwide community deserving of respect.

AAUW's 100,000-member efforts are admired on Capitol Hill and in the civil rights and women's' advocacy communities. They see it in the work we do, the authority with which we speak, and the battles we are willing to wage and win or return to fight again. And they want us with them, and they work hard to gain our support and involvement.

Our AAUW community is powerful and influential given:

• The strength of 100,000 real individual AAUW members;
• Our legacy of 126 years of advancing women's equity through a unique integration of our time, our energy and our philanthropy — coupled with
• Our shared exercise of this power. Although we come from cities and towns and rural areas across our country and overseas, AAUW is one united community in our dedication to advancing opportunity and equity for women and girls.

To be members who contribute to this shared mission, we need to see how aligned work across the organization leads to results (i.e., breaks down barriers), and results lead to funding and attracting new members. Today, more than ever, as we can only in concert, our AAUW community:

• Protects the legal rights of those facing discrimination;
• Educates women for a lifetime of success;
• Advocates for laws that give women a fair chance;
• Researches educational and economic barriers that harm women; and
• Leads and teaches others to lead in our schools, communities and country.

Few organizations other than AAUW can claim such a rich and deep history of commitment and achievement. Few other organizations are galvanized with such clarity of vision about a shared value. Few other organizations can demonstrate that their members come together from such varied geographic, political, and professional backgrounds all dedicated to advancing a shared mission. Few other organizations work in so many different ways to achieve their goals.

As we see ourselves anew — as members first and foremost of the entire AAUW community — we become agents for ensuring that all women will have a fair chance. In other words, we keep our AAUW Value Promise and reap all the benefits of doing so!

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This briefing is the fourth in our AAUW Current Topics Briefing Series