Good morning! Take a look at these awesome presentations about how nonprofits can benefit from multimedia. Does your small staff association use video?

Happy Friday! I’m definitely ready for the holiday weekend, and I hope our readers are too. Memorial Day just screams “family,” “friends,” “BBQ” and “baseball” to me, and luckily my three-day weekend will include all of those things! Whatever your plans are, I hope you’re taking advantage of the holiday weekend!

It was Small Staff Week at the Acronym blog, so there were lots of awesome guest posters. I’ve included two of them in this week’s Friday Top Five. Read on to find out which posts were among my favorites this week!

1. Becky Rasmussen at the Drake & Company blog shared five major trends affecting association leaders and staff members today. A few highlights? Demographic shifts and generation differences, blurring of sectors and technology. Sure, technology might seem a little obvious, but it’s staying on top of new technology and trends that can be difficult.

2. For the Acronym blog, Caryl Garais Tynan of the American College of Phlebology shared a takeaway from a recent time management class: an email management tool called RAFT. Refer, Action, File or Throw away refers to how you should handle each piece of email and paper that passes your desk. Take one of four actions and your desk (and your inbox) should be much less cluttered!

3. Jeffrey Cufaude wrote about an important characteristic that I think many small staff association leaders might forget about: curiosity. As a leader, it’s so crucial to seek fresh perspectives and expose yourself to new ideas, methods and people. By staying curious, you’ll ensure your thinking won’t be “flat,” as Jeffrey put it.

4. You’ve probably been hearing about content marketing for quite sometime, but Jeff Hurt described it in so succinct a way this week that I couldn’t help but share it with our readers: If an organization delivers consistent, ongoing valuable information to its customers, the customers reward the organization with their business and their loyalty.

5. Last but certainly not least, Joseph Normandy shared why small staff associations are nimble in a guest post at the Acronym blog. Flexibility is a key point here; small staff associations are not necessarily bogged down by momentum and environment. How does your small staff association stay nimble?

From everyone at MemberClicks, have a wonderful long weekend!

I was reading an interesting article in Associations Now about meeting member demand, and the first point really struck a nerve with me:

Membership development is your core business, not a function relegated to the membership department. Every aspect of the organization is responsible for and contributes to it.

Why is this such a key point?

Because small staff associations are lucky enough to not be tied down by silos. As a small staff association professional, you probably have your hand in multiple areas of association management, which allows you to understand and conceptualize how to run an association — even if you’re the youngest person in the office (and believe me, I can relate to that).

By being involved in multiple areas of the association, it’s likely that you — again, no matter how far along you are in your career — have a clear understanding of the value proposition your association can play in your members’ lives. Did a member off-offhandedly mention a minor problem to you during a short phone conversation? Maybe other members have similar needs.

Even if you’re not directly involved in membership, you could have a solid understanding of your members’ greatest wants and needs. As an association staff member, you have the power to help your members do their jobs better.

And as a small staff association professional, you’re right in the thick of it and have the opportunity to truly get to know your members — and to help them.

Elizabeth Weaver Engel posted a fantastic presentation to Slideshare and I had to share it with our readers.

My key takeaways from this presentation:

- You’ve gotta have a strategy for social media. It’s just like any other communications channel.

- “What we’re doing hasn’t changed, we just have new options for how we do it.” So true. Having more options can be tough, but it’s do-able.

- Don’t reveal confidential information. Have a social media policy in place for your staff members. If they blog on their own time, ask them to make it clear their opinions are their own and do not reflect the organization’s.

- Don’t be afraid of losing control of what’s said about the organization, but be aware.

What’s your key takeaway from Elizabeth’s presentation?

Picture this: Someone kneads the knots caused by stress out of your back. You sit back in a deep, comfortable chair while someone rubs your feet. A facialist smooths your skin.

Sounds pretty refreshing, right?

Well, you and the staff of your small staff association could experience that for a day. Have you entered MemberClicks’ Ultimate Small-Staff Spa Day Giveaway yet?

If not, what are you waiting for?! We know how stressful it can be to successfully manage an organization with 15 or fewer people on staff. So we want you to take a load off, relax and enjoy yourselves — on us.

Sound good? We thought so. Here are the details:

• Go to our Facebook page and “like us.”
• Post a picture of your entire staff together to our wall along with a short explanation of why you need a day at the spa. Creativity is encouraged!
• If an entrant does not have a Facebook account, they can send a picture of their staff accompanied by an explanation of why they need a day at the spa to webmaster@memberclicks.com.
• Multiple entries per organization are accepted (limit one per staff member – pictures must be different).
• Entries will be accepted from May 10 through June 29, 2011.
• On June 30, we will choose a winner. Winners will first be announced on the MemberClicks Facebook and Twitter.

If you don’t win the grand prize (a spa day for your entire staff, valued up to $3,000), you could still win one of 10 Serenity Packages (cue the “Seinfeld” joke), specifically designed to refresh small staff associations.

If your association has 15 or fewer people on staff, you’re eligible to win. Or, if you’re a current MemberClicks customer, you can also enter. Check out the rest of the fine print here.

Oh, and one more thing … we’re giving away $10 Starbucks gift cards to the first 20 entrants. So what are you waiting for?!?!

Good luck!