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Attachment 1

Petition for an APMP Carolina Chapter (Example) 

The breadth and depth of research, government, and private contracting activity throughout North Carolina offers the potential for a strong, active APMP chapter in the Southeast USA.

The Association for Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) serves proposal managers and related professionals throughout the world. As part of its mission to advance the arts, sciences and technology of proposal management, APMP aims to reach as much of its target audience as possible. Increased membership enhances APMP's ability to affect changes on a national level in the way federal government and other clients submit requests for work, and how proposal managers respond to them (via its Government Liaison group, and sheer strength in numbers, among other ways).

In North Carolina, there are currently 32 APMP members contributing to APMP's goals. Further, informal research and knowledge about business and industry in the state, particularly the Research Triangle Park area, indicates that the potential exists for upwards of hundreds of members in North Carolina alone, and expansions into South Carolina as well.

Some of the largest clinical trial and pharmaceutical companies, such as Quintiles Transnational and Glaxo-Wellcome, are headquartered in North Carolina. EPA has one of its largest operations here. NIEHS (National Institute of Environmental Health Services) is here. Banking in Charlotte (First Union, NationsBank), and textiles in Greensboro (Burlington Industries) also provide membership opportunities. And leading research universities such as Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State rely on federal grants for research. All these industries request and respond to proposals, and many have significant proposal management staffs to support these activities.

A North Carolina chapter, then, is needed to support proposal management across industries and cities, and to provide value-added services to proposal managers by sharing successes and lessons learned to enhance the way we work every day, and formulate ideas, processes, and plans for future efforts. This document is a petition for a North Carolina chapter. The information below addresses all elements as required in Section B.2, Petitioning for a Chapter Charter, of the APMP Chapter Charter Guidelines.

B.2.a Location of Chapter

The Carolina Chapter will be located in the Triangle area of North Carolina, where charter members reside and work. The Triangle encompasses Raleigh, Cary, Durham, and Chapel Hill. The chapter also will include major cities throughout the state, such as Greensboro, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and Wilmington.

The Triangle in particular contains a large concentration of potential members based on the business activities of Research Triangle Park (RTP). RTP was one of the first scientific research parks in the nation. Today, it has the second highest concentration of PhDs (second to Boston) and is host to headquarters for Glaxo-Wellcome, SAS Institute, Research Triangle Institute and IBM, among others.

Chapter headquarters will be in Raleigh, NC.

B.2.b Chapter Name

The APMP chapter based in North Carolina will be called, "The Carolina Chapter." If in future years, our chapter expands to include South Carolina, the name might be changed to "The Carolinas Chapter."

B.2.c Chapter Officers

Initially, the Carolina Chapter will be run by an eight-person board that comprises:

Chair

Vice Chair

Treasurer

Secretary

Membership

Program

Promotion and Advertising

Publications.

Designated persons to fulfill key positions will be elected during the first full membership meeting, to be held in January 1998. Temporarily, the following persons are serving in key positions, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Key Personnel
Position	Name
Chair	Lisa Maley, KePRO
Vice Chair	David Sotolongo, RTI
Treasurer	Carol Munden, General Dynamics
Secretary	Lisa Maley, Melissa Church-Lawton
Membership	Michael Mangano, TechServ, Inc

Our organization was developed from the primary task areas of managing a nonprofit Board, and based on a review of other chapter setups (Chatahoochee and National Capital Area).

Bylaws containing descriptions of our organization and related duties of key personnel will be developed within the first year of the chapter, and will include:

A list of all officers and their responsibilities:

	Rules governing our election process
	Terms and conditions of officers and their committees
	Meeting protocols (both membership and board)
	Budget guidelines and recordkeeping procedures.

Here, we address the duties and responsibilities of those positions required by the charter guidelines: Chair, Treasurer, Secretary. We have divided the Secretary/Treasurer position as listed in the charter guidelines into two positions, given the considerable amount of time spent on report writing just to support initiation activities to date.

Our Chair will lead this board and oversee all chapter activities. Primarily, the Chair will ensure that the chapter provides APMP with all reporting requirements specified by the Charter Chapter Guidelines (please see Section B.2.g.4 for a description of the reporting requirements). Our Treasurer will supervise all fiscal operations and will serve as the primary point of contact to the APMP CFO. These two Officers will:

	Establish and maintain a chapter checking account
	Develop and maintain transaction logs
	Verify bank statements, and identify and justify any discrepancies
	Identify opportunities for fund raising
	Provide semiannual reports to the APMP CFO detailing activities, including supporting statements, receipts, and other documentation
	Contribute to the annual report, providing fiscal information
	Ensure the chapter remains fiscally solvent
	Communicate/network with other APMP chapter treasurers to identify opportunities for improvement.

Our Secretary will oversee all reports. Specifically, the Secretary will:

	Write and disseminate meeting minutes, and submit copies with the annual report, as required
	Develop and disseminate evaluation forms for each event, and collate and report feedback to the other Board members to use as enhancement opportunities
	Create the annual report, which the Carolina Chapter foresees as a comprehensive report on both fiscal and operational status (see B.2.g.3 for more information).

B.2.d Mailing Address

The mailing address is:

Lisa Maley
6026 Inona Place
Raleigh, NC 27606

B.2.e Phone Number

The phone number is:

Lisa Maley
919-859-5673

B.2.f Charter Members

Chapter Charter Guidelines indicate that 10 members are needed to create a chapter; informal discussions with national board members indicate 25 members form a more solid chapter base. As indicated in Attachment A of this document, the North Carolina Chapter currently has a list of 32 member names, more than enough, then, to support the chapter.

Moreover, other recruitment activities have indicated additional members, as discussed below. Recruitment activities to date have been based on networking; in the future, they will be more formalized. For example, we have developed a recruitment letter (see Attachment B) to disseminate to potential members and companies (hardcopy and electronic sign-up), and have begun to outline an accompanying recruitment plan. This plan will include personal visits to key organizations (such as brown bag lunches) to develop support for the chapter.

B.2.f.1 Current Members

Attachment A provides a list of current NC members. We have called the majority of these members in recent months (July 1998) to confirm their continued support of APMP activities; 21 of the 32 are still active members to date; the remaining 11 will be contacted to identify future status in the organization.

B.2.f.2 Other Members

In addition to the current list of members, NC charter members have been informally recruiting members from within and outside of their respective organizations. We have received oral commitments from 18 people, in addition to the 32 identified in Attachment A:

• Christina Van Dorsten, DynCorp, Proposal Manager for Health Research Services Division
• Ruth Jordan, DynCorp, Epidemiologist (and proposal support) for Health Research Services Division
• Dorothy Davenport, RTI, Contract Specialist
• Debra Bost, RTI, Proposal Manager
• Jennifer Karnitschig, RTI, Proposal Manager
• Gigi Myers, BlueCross BlueShield, Proposal Manager
• Beth Gallagher, BlueCross BlueShield, Proposal Manager
• Bill Warren Hicks, The Cadmus Group
• Brenda Tuttle, Lucent Technologies, Proposal Manager
• Sara Jones, Lucent Technologies, Proposal Manager
• Louis Rosario, Lucent Technologies, Proposal Manager
• Bob Judd, General Dynamics, Project Manager
• Chuck Moy, General Dynamics, Project Manager
• Five persons from ClinTrials.

Most of these recruits have agreed to join after a chapter has been designated.

B.2.g Charter Operating Plan

Charter members of the Carolina chapter have spent the past six months learning the success and potential pitfalls of chapter startup through conversations with regional, local, and national members. As a result of these activities, we have developed a simple but comprehensive program for our first year, as detailed in this section. As our plan evolves and membership grows, the Carolina Chapter will continually look for ways to improve our function. For example, we plan on attending a sample of regional meetings from existing chapters (such as Atlanta, DC) to continue to obtain and share best practices and lessons learned. We also will foster open communications among our members and will encourage suggestions for improvement.

B.2.g.1 Meeting Dates, Locations, Workshops

Figure 2 summarizes our proposed schedule of events, including dates. We have scheduled six meetings, as required, with two additional meeting ideas. Text following the figure provides more detail about each program, including potential speakers and topics for discussion. These ideas provide a starting point for developing a strong 1999 program, but are subject to change. Meetings will be held in charter member company facilities, such as RTI and SAS Institute, and at local government agencies such as NIEHS and EPA, which offer conference room time for free. Meeting places will be selected based on their ability to minimize cost and maximize accessibility to the most members.

Figure 2: Program Ideas
Topic	Date	Justification
General Membership Meeting	January 1999	Need to hold a membership meeting prior to producing any events
Government Insiderís View of Proposal Evaluation	February 1999	Big draw for first event is inside information from government about what it thinks, how to win
Proposal Managerís Bag of Tricks Workshop	April 1999	Gather ideas for the "high season" to make the coming months more manageable
Getting on the GSA List (possible cosponsor with CMA)	September 1999	Since the process to get on this list takes nearly a year, holding a meeting like this now can help prepare membersí companies for the following year.
Oral Presentations	October 1999	If there is a slow season, itís about now; this is a good time to concentrate on coaching, preparing for orals
Business Proposals (possible cosponsor with CMA)	November 1999	Still a time where things are a little slower, and people have time to concentrate on a portion of the proposal that is often overshadowed by the technical proposal.
Lobbying/Healthcare Indus try	(alternate)	Topic targets a key potential APMP audience to build membership; applicable to both government and commercial audiences
Virtual Proposal Centers	(March or October 1999)	Topic applicable to both government and commercial audiences and is in keeping with CQI philosophy prevalent in most organizations today
Note: Meetings/events will not be held during times that conflict with APMPís national conference (May 1999), the holiday season (December), or the busiest proposal season (June through August) to maximize attendance.

Program 1/January

"Membership Meeting"

A general membership meeting to kick off the chapter, led by the Chapter Chair and other Board Members.

Introduce the Carolina Chapter and its function
Introduce members to each other
Elect key officers
Establish committees, plans for future events.

Program 2/February

"What the Government Really Thinks: An Insiderís View of Proposal Evaluation"

Panel of speakers who are former or present federal government official who has extensive experience in both writing RFPs and participating in the evaluation process. Agencies to be determined; maybe CDC, NIH, EPA, NIEHS, DHHS, HCFA, DoD

Explanation of evaluation criteria (from the governmentís standpoint)
Elements of Winning Proposals
Government personnel pet peeves, from writing style to presentation.


Program 3/April

"Proposal Managerís Bag of Tricks Workshop"

(For those who attended the 1998 national conference, this would be a condensed version of the seminar related to this topic, and focused toward more experienced professionals. This will be in a workshop format.)

Facilitator is one of us/Board Members

How to get nonwriters to write persuasively and in accordance with the RFP
How to get writers to meet deadlines
How to hold stimulating kick-off meetings; and productive debriefs
Production problems and solutions, including shipping last minute. 

Program 4/September

"Getting on the (GS)A-List"

Some estimates indicate that GSA has more than $5 billion to spend in the next five years, and that the primary way itís doing this is through outsourcing through the GSA list. Speaker will be from GSA, a firm that specializes in helping companies get on the list, or a company that has been through this lengthy process.

Process
Qualifications
Potential for funding
Lessons Learned. 

Program 5/November

"To Be Taken Orally: Digesting the New Oral Presentations Environment"

(For those who attended the 1998 national conference, this would be a condensed version of the handful of seminars related to this topic.)

Speaker is a professor or graduate of the George Washington University program that teaches government officials about oral presentations or possibly Shipley Associates, CDI, or a similar firm

Regulations and Evaluation
Preparation
Coaching 

Program 6/August

"Business Proposals" (topic to be refined)

Speaker is from NCMA, a CEO, or a Contracts Manager

Elements of
Coordination with Technical Proposal
Cost-efficient strategies. 

Alternate idea 1

"Lobbying in the Healthcare Industry" (or something that deals with lobbying, marketing, positioning)

Speaker is Tobey Dichter, of SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (Vice President of Marketing/Lobby Specialist)

Elements of
Strategic positioning in the marketplace
How to
White papers and other tools. 

Alternate idea 2

"Virtual Proposal Center"

Speakers/Demonstrations from two or three vendors during a membership social

Software demonstrations
Process changes
Related issues.

B.2.g.2 Operating Budgets

Our anticipated operating budget for the first year is about $2,500. We will use the $500 seed money for startup activities. Other sources of funding will come from nominal fees (about $10-15) for some key events, corporate sponsorships, and advertisements in our newsletter. The Carolina Chapter appreciates that the national organization has provided us for free stationary and postage to initiate marketing efforts. We will use the first year as a benchmark for future operating budgets.

B.2.g.3 Reporting Requirements

The Carolina Chapter will adhere to all reporting requirements as specified in the Guidelines for Accounting, Chapter Accounts in the APMP Chapter Charter Guidelines, and will supplement financial reporting with an annual operational progress report.

Specifically, we will maintain the following internal reports: Checking Accounts
Transaction Logs
Bank Statement Reconciliations
Meeting Minutes
Membership logs
Newsletter and other communication activities
Evaluation reports for each event, other feedback reports.

We will provide the following reports to the APMP CFO:

Monthly bank statement irregularity reports, if any, due 30 days within the monthly closing date
Semiannual reports, due July 15, that contain copies of transaction logs for the previous six months and a copy of the bank reconciliation for June
Annual report (see below for description)
Chapter rolls, containing meeting attendance lists The annual report will be a comprehensive fiscal and operational summary. In addition to a summary of our fiscal status, the annual report will identify our goals for the past year and how well we met them. It also will summarize in text and graphical format chapter activities, successes, problems and solutions. The report will include minutes of all chapter meetings as an appendix, as required, and additional materials produced (such as a newsletter, sample invitations and other promotional materials.). Finally, goals for the following year will be established and communicated to National.