In efforts to be more transparent and better represent our community, we would like to share our board meeting notes each month. In hopes with anyone who is interested can get involved, share critiques, state concerns, and more.

Please reach out to us on social media or email at info@pittsburgh.aiga.org.

Not in attendance for this month’s meeting: Jason, Jon, Michael, and Sydney

Financial and Investment Planning

Board discussion about our financial accounts and what our plan and goals should be to manage finances moving forward. Discussion led by Mark, Board Treasurer. 

Discussion started with the following questions:

1. What is our plan for the money we have in our accounts?
2. What physical tools and training do you lack to fulfill your volunteer responsibilities and goals for the chapter?
3. How do we finance our immediate future?

• In the past, we kept event costs low and we didn’t spend a lot of money.
• Our more expensive events in the past have included PGH365, Portfolio Day, and National Leadership Retreats. We didn’t have to pay for any of these events this year.
• Idea suggested for events to be “pay as you wish” in order to be more inclusive for the community and students.
• We have seen a significant increase in our accounts this year because of memberships and sponsorships associated with the National Conference.
• Considered ideas for future events/projects that would require spend. 
• We’ve worked on aligning our goals for the chapter, so we should create a financial plan that supports our goals.
• Change in mindset that we can spend money on things that provide value to our chapter.

Get Out the Vote (GOTV)

Board Members Sarah, Emily, and Laurel gave the board an update on the planning for GOTV events and initiatives for the chapter.

• Laurel and Sarah presented proposal for And She Could Be Next Virtual Screening
  • Event will screen an abridged version of the film She Could Be Next produced by POV and ITVS. After the screening, there will be a discussion based on prompts from the film.
  • The film follows the grassroots campaigns of six women of color running for political office during the contentious 2018 United States midterm elections. Produced by female filmmakers of color, the documentary offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of these women leaders whose personal motivations, political coalitions, and ground-level activism steamroll the expectations of their opponents and of the broader public — defying traditional notions of what it means to be a U.S. politician in the process. 
  • The event will be on Wednesday, October 7th starting at 6:30pm. It will be hosted on Zoom with 100 free tickets. 
  • Event was approved by the board
• AIGA National’s GOTV Poster Campaigns have been added to our event calendar
• Miller ICA (CMU) exhibit Get Out The Vote: Empowering the Women’s has also been added to the event calendar
• We have also partnered with beamdata for a social media campaign about voting and different issues affecting Pittsburgh. The campaign will be 3-4 weeks long with each week focusing on a different issue and featuring a different designer. Data will be from beamdata’s app Be the Change. Campaign will be shared on our channels and beamdata’s.

D&I Workshop Follow Up & Update

D&I Director, Emily led the discussion for how the board was feeling after completing the D&I workshop last month. Discussion moved onto updates on current D&I items. 

• Overall consensus was it was a fantastic experience to be a part of and everyone learned a lot
• Great to have a moderator to lead the discussion and it was just us talking to each other
• Wish we did not run out of time and were able to fully finish activation and implementation portions of the workshop
• Board reviewed spreadsheet with D&I items and discussed the status of each one
• Decision to update the board of directors page on the website with listing committee members and updating everyone’s information with new photos. Sarah volunteered to gather all the information
• Emily brought up the opportunity to sponsor CoCoHaus by purchasing tickets for the Creative Curriculum that will be part of a giveaway campaign on social media. Discussion around how many tickets are the right amount. After the meeting, the board decided [through Slack communication] to sponsor 10 tickets. 

Open Mic

Board ended the meeting with a discussion of non-agenda items.

• AIGA Leadership retreat will be virtual in October. National to release schedule soon.
• National conference will be virtual in November. Board decision to cancel all local events and refund all tickets. We have the opportunity to make events virtual but do we have the capacity to do this and how much value does it provide locally? Decided to connect the national team with opportunities for virtual events, but not to take on virtual experiences as a chapter.
• Need to print our thank you cards we commissioned artwork for last year. Moo gift card that we were going to use has expired. Should we still print with Moo or print locally? Mark and Lindsay to look into pricing. 
• Sarah is interested in creating an Education tab on our Facebook page. Emily to look into the details.