The Women in Print Alliance’s membership structure is strategically designed to deliver unique benefits to student, individual, and corporate members. While the benefits of student and individual memberships are straightforward, corporate membership benefits are multi-layered.

We sat down with Lisbeth Lyons Black, director of Women in Print Alliance, to gain a better understanding of the ROI of a corporate membership and to hear why partnering with Women in Print Alliance can help companies cultivate a strong learning culture.

WPA: What is a corporate membership, and how does it differ from an individual or student membership?

Lisbeth Lyons Black (LLB): A Women in Print Alliance corporate membership is the purchase of a defined number of membership seats. A company is essentially sponsoring a select number of its women employees to receive membership benefits paid for by their employer. There is a range of membership seats and prices available. Corporate memberships are annual with a renewal date one year from the date of membership purchase.

WPA: Once a company purchases a corporate membership, what are next steps?

LLB: The first – and most important step – is to determine which women employees the company will sponsor for membership. This decision and responsibility is the company’s, though Women in Print Alliance provides a detailed Corporate Membership Onboarding Manual to assist with both who to select and how to enroll. Our manual is emailed to the point of contact who purchased the corporate membership. That person also receives a custom code that allows the women they’ve selected to go online to self-register. The feedback thus far is that corporate members find it simple to both enroll and onboard the women whom they are sponsoring.

WPA: How do companies decide which women employees are the best candidates to sponsor for membership?

LLB: Corporate memberships are designed so that companies can sponsor women employees in a way that best aligns with the organization’s professional development goals and needs. They may select women from any function or job title or at any level of seniority from your company to fill membership seats. Women may be in externally facing roles, like sales, or internal operations, like finance, or in technical roles. Often companies engage their HR teams in the selection process to leverage this professional development opportunity with their overall strategic employee training and retention goals. Again, our Corporate Membership Onboarding Manual provides a list of suggested ways to allocate corporate membership seats.

WPA: What benefits does a woman receive once the company has sponsored her for a membership seat?

LLB: The women employees selected by a company receive an exclusive mix of memberships benefits in Women in Print Alliance, such as invitations to community-building events, virtual professional development workshops and webinars, a mentorship-focused podcast, and networking opportunities. Additionally, members are eligible to submit business expertise content for publication on our website and in our newsletter; this helps position the women as thought leaders in the broader print industry. Members also receive prioritization to be featured in the Women in Print Alliance newsletter under the Community Spotlight section, which helps elevate their professional profiles.

WPA: What benefits does a company receive when it purchases a corporate membership?

LLB: In addition to onboarding support from Women in Print Alliance, corporate members receive PR assets to help publicize the organization’s commitment to the initiative. Specifically, we provide social media graphics/sample posts, a press release template, and a sample blog post. The use of Women in Print Alliance logo on the company website or on business cards is available upon request. Corporate members are eligible to receive recognition at select PRINTING United Alliance conferences and summits and at PRINTING United Expo. They are also welcomed to host official Women in Print Alliance events, such as networking events or job fairs, at their facilities.

WPA: How does a corporate membership complement a company’s existing professional development and training program?

LLB: This question was one that really drove our build out of the Women in Print Alliance corporate membership model. Given that the size and resources printing companies range from fewer than 10 employees to multi-national corporations, we recognized that for some companies, a corporate membership would essentially be an outsourced resource. For larger companies that have more robust in-house professional development programs, a corporate membership is an add-on to their existing training catalogs. And for member companies that have their own internal women’s ERGs, purchasing a Women in Print Alliance corporate membership still makes sense as it allows the company’s women  employees an opportunity to network outside of the company to build industry connections.

WPA: Bottom line, is there an ROI associated with a corporate membership?

LLB: Absolutely. Deloitte has some great statistics on how organizations with an emphasis on learning cultures outperform their peers. For example, companies that emphasize professional learning and development are 56% more likely to be first to market with a new product or service. They are 17% percent more likely to be profitable. And when it comes to employee retention, these companies out perform peers in the range of 30%-50%. Every printing company owner I meet is looking for a competitive edge, and purchasing a corporate membership in women in print – which demonstrates a commitment to empowering and educating female employees – is just one more way to drive innovation and define excellence.