Read the AIGA Minnesota Annual Report July 20, 2010

To our members:

Every July, the Board of Directors of AIGA Minnesota is asked to produce a comprehensive annual report as part of our affiliation with the national AIGA organization. We won’t bore you with the other details of these affiliation requirements, but they also include a full battery of tax and accounting documents, a list of our current board members, and a signed charter agreement—a 4-page contract that formalizes the relationship between AIGA and AIGA Minnesota.

As part of our commitment to leading the AIGA Minnesota board of directors with full transparency, we invite you to download a copy (PDF) of our annual report. It covers the period of time between July 2009 and July 2010 and details our chapter’s programming, financial state, membership status, and strengths and weaknesses.

If you’re not up for reading the entire report, here are few highlights:

• We produced or co-produced 66 events or programs between July 2009 and July 2010. Though most of this programming is developed to be relevant to all AIGA Minnesota members, several programming efforts focused on the specific needs or interests of our diverse membership: Student Designers, Design Educators, Emerging Designers, In-House Designers, Veteran Designers, and so on.
• We continue to partner with like-minded organizations to produce relevant content for our members—we did so 16 times in the past 12 months. Doing this not only broadens the scope of the programming we’re able to provide, but it also ensures a strong and vibrant community through our relationships with other organizations.
• We have more members now than we did a year ago. AIGA Minnesota’s current membership stands at just over 1,200 members.
• The finances of AIGA Minnesota are strong and sustainable. Last summer, due to lack of adequate funding, the board of directors voted to release our chapter’s full-time administrative employee. Though this was an extremely difficult decision, doing so has allowed our chapter to return to a solid financial footing. Fortunately, we have amazing volunteers who have worked even harder in the past year to keep things moving smoothly. (Thank you, volunteers!)
• During the past 12-month period, our total chapter expenses decreased by 34%. This, along with the help of a robust programming calendar, strong member support, and the generous assistance of our sponsors—especially our Official Gold Sponsor, Microsoft—caused an income increase of more than 550% over the previous 12 months.

All in all, we’ve had a great year, and things will only continue to get better! AIGA Minnesota continues to respond to external circumstances, internal challenges, and—above all—our members’ needs. The entire Board is throughly committed to building an organization that provides relevant and rewarding programming and experiences for everyone who chooses to participate, and I have no doubt we’ll be able to continue doing so over the next 12 months and beyond.

Download the Report (pdf)

We look forward to hearing from you as we continue to move ahead.

Kind regards,

Seth Johnson
President, AIGA Minnesota
president@aigaminnesota.org