Virtual Chapter Leaders Meeting

Every year during the ACFE Global Fraud Conference we hold a live Chapter Leaders Meeting for leaders who are attending the conference. This year, since the Global Fraud Conference was held virtually, we decided to hold our leaders meeting virtually as well. Unlike in past years, however, we invited all chapter leaders to attend, regardless of whether or not they were registered for the conference. By opening this meeting to all leaders, nearly 300 were able to attend and participate.

This year’s meeting was held on June 18 and 19, meeting for about two hours each day. Many chapter leaders from around the world used the opportunity to attend the meeting for the first time, connecting with other leaders and learning from each other’s experiences.

The Chapter Leaders Meeting was co-presented by Evan Lemoine, CFE, President of the Rhode Island Chapter, and James Rumph, President of the Central Ohio Chapter. Both are members of the Chapter Leaders Committee who helped develop the agenda and content for the meeting.

For this year’s leaders meeting, we used a platform called Remo. This platform gave us the ability to mimic the feel of a conference by allowing attendees to “sit” at a table and speak with the other members at the table. There were multiple chat opportunities. While the speakers presented, each attendee’s microphone was muted, and the platform enabled attendees to go on stage and ask their questions on or off-camera. If you would like more information on Remo, feel free to email me, and I will be happy to provide you with it.

On both days they focused primarily on challenges faced during COVID-19. On the first day, the topic was “Facilitating Virtual Chapter Presentations.” We learned that nearly 60% of chapters in attendance have already begun providing virtual trainings, and nearly all chapters are planning on holding virtual trainings in the future.

One of the most important decisions to consider when holding a virtual event is deciding which platform to use. Popular choices among chapter leaders in attendance were Zoom, Webex, and GoToMeeting.

We also discussed speakers and the process of finding them for virtual events. We have created a speaker database to help chapters find speakers. It is located in the Chapter Leaders Discussion Forum. This is a perfect time for you to reach out to a speaker whom you wouldn’t normally be able to host due to budget constraints.

The topic for the second day was, “Retaining Members During COVID-19.” We began the meeting by asking which is more valuable – a retained member or a new member. By an overwhelming margin, leaders agreed that retaining existing members was more important.

Chapter leaders shared a few strategies they have used during COVID-19 to either retain members or to build their membership by demonstrating the value of being a member of the chapter. Our South Florida Chapter is offering a series of free webinars to their chapter members. This strategy has yielded tremendous growth of their membership. Since the cost of holding a virtual event is relatively affordable, they’ve passed on the savings to their members by only charging non-members for the training. This has more than covered the monthly cost of the Zoom platform.

Chapters have recognized some of their members via monthly newsletter and social media posts. Other chapters have used this period to reach out to their members with surveys to get to know them and identify their interests for future events.

These are just a few of the highlights discussed over the two days. Whether or not you attended this year’s meeting, you are welcome to view the slides presented at the meeting. We also recorded the presentation, so you can watch it at your convenience.

If you have attended the ACFE Global Fraud Conference but have not made it to a Chapter Leaders Meeting, I encourage you to do so in the future. It is an investment of a few hours that could yield big dividends for your chapter.

Thank you to all who attended, and I look forward to an even better meeting next year.