Corporate Support Making a Difference

Being an APMA president presents a unique opportunity to advance our profession, but the tenure is short, and every day brings renewed demands for consistency and determination.

APMA is the premier organization representing podiatric medicine and surgery in every forum, meeting, and seminar that we attend. Leading this association is a humbling responsibility, yet a challenge that I relish. As your president, I treat every day with that attitude. I listen to the debates. I travel all over the country and attend the meetings. I read the listserves. I assess the content, the quality, and the tone of discussions. I try to make a difference and hope my contributions will be an important part of our history.

So what have we done in the past few months? Let’s look at the area of development. Ten years ago, Dr. Harold Glickman and I cochaired the Corporate Partners program. This was a new venture for APMA, and our recommendations were on target and are being implemented as we speak.

The Annual Meeting reflects these changes. We were advised that if we created a large meeting, at a low cost, our corporate friends would support us in grand style. Boston was a breakthrough meeting, with more than 3,600 attendees. Future years will be better. You must attend one of these meetings to feel the camaraderie, the excitement, and the consummate learning experience APMA can offer.

Many members made those comments to me during the past few months. Everyone felt a sense of pride viewing a grand (you had to see it) exhibit hall, multiple lecture tracks, focused seminars at mealtimes, cocktail parties, and numerous celebrations of every kind. Make plans now for Orlando in August 2005, or miss the best meeting our profession can produce.

Let’s look at the entire area of APMA’s corporate development. We have an inspirational team led by our Chair of Development, Trustee Kathleen Stone, DPM. We recently hired as Director of Development Ms. Heather Thomas, who is a true professional and a pleasure to work with. We have a great team to ensure that our growth in nondues income will surge beyond our expectations.

One of my most satisfying accomplishments in this area as president will be APMA’s efforts to work closely with the Fund for Podiatric Medical Education in order to maximize our resources and fund-raising potential. In a historic set of meetings in Boston, both boards agreed to incorporate the Fund’s activities within the APMA’s Educational Foundation. We will be able to guarantee the endowments, and at the same time we can strive to increase our annual contributions. I am convinced that this was a huge victory for student scholarships. I congratulate the leadership of both boards for this visionary move.

What else has our Development Department done?

We raised a record $730,000 from our corporate sponsors during the Annual Meeting. For the first time, we had two sponsors, Dermik Laboratories, Inc, and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, at the platinum giving level of $100,000. Just think—a few short years ago, some members felt that there was no purpose for this meeting. As of September 14, we already have raised $190,000 for the 2005 meeting, with many companies increasing their contributions and making plans for multiyear programs. Are millions of dollars each year very far away? I don’t think so.

Novartis underwrote the inclusion of podiatrists in pdr.net and mobile pdr. This came at no cost to you as a DPM, but at a significant cost to the company. Many thanks to our friends at Novartis for this generous support. We have secured sponsorship for both the APMA Alert, through the generosity of Upsher-Smith, and APMA Coding, thanks to Medicis, so that these valuable publications can continue to appear. We recently released the HIPAA Security Manual to our members at no cost. Corporate support makes such benefits possible.

In addition, thanks to our friends in the corporate sector, APMA has been able to offer other services and programs: PICA has renewed its sponsorship of the Young Members’ Program; Royce’s three-year sponsorship of APMA’s diabetes education program continues at various regional meetings and will conclude at the 2005 APMA Annual Scientific Meeting; and, finally, Spenco has renewed its sponsorship of the APMA Educational Foundation with a three-year commitment of support.

So, where are we headed? With every dollar we raise from our corporate friends, we lessen the burden on our membership to advance our goals without raising dues. I know our Board of Trustees and staff in the Development Department are committed to that objective.

We are experiencing the golden age of podiatry, and APMA is running the show. We are all podiatrists, and we must never waver from our sense of family unity and our primary purpose to work cooperatively to protect our patients’ health and defend our members’ rights to be successful.