Reasons to join a professional body

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

Jane Goodall

This year I said that I will dedicate it to education. Which is why I joined 2 professional organizations, following to add a third one at the end of the year. I chose them based on my professional interests, development opportunities based on checking their activity and also on my budget. All these make sure that once I joined them so as my membership to offer me a continuous personal and professional development. So my resume currently contains the fact that I volunteer in Toastmasters, and other professional bodies as:

- IAF (International Association of Facilitators) - is a participatory organisation with members in more than 65 countries. As a professional association, they established internationally accepted standards for facilitation industry. Providing accreditation, support for a community of practice, advocate and educate on the power of facilitation, they embrace the diversity of facilitators. The interesting part of this organisation is the working groups on various skills - I, for example, am one of those who use visual elements a lot. So being part of a visual facilitators working group offers me the opportunity to test, participate and exchange experience with people from all over the world.

- EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council) - is (alongside ICF) one of the bodies that certified my coaching school. The EMCC exists to develop, promote and set the expectation of best practice in mentoring, coaching, and supervision globally for the benefit of society. They run researches in mentoring, supervision, but also in the area of vocational education. The Romanian community is a relaunched one and has many events that I invite you to follow on Facebook or Linkedin. I joined them because I can develop my mentoring skills, together with the coaching ones.

Next is going to be ICF (International Coaching Federation) one of the best known globally in this area and which also validated the coaching school I chose. It is part of the accreditation path that I want to be on ICF, but also on EMCC.

What are the benefits of being a member of a professional organization? I have identified 4 so far.

1. Access to educational events meant to offer you professional development, both through CPD (Continuous Professional Development) points and others for the area of soft skills - such as collaboration, adaptability or creativity. When we are talking about accreditations, the CPD points area helps you to renew your degree (so to speak) every year or every two years.

2. Increase your professional development level. When you join the association you do it with a certain experience gain while in school being peer or client coaching that certifies you as a coach. But the continuous development and professional experience means accreditation of the professional body by degrees of practitioner, associate, senior, master, etc. Each of these degrees gives you a validation of your efforts and will keep your muscle trained. The journey includes events, trainings, other schools you choose to attend, but also a lot of practice hours, and in some cases we are talking about thousands of hours, not just hundreds. This means that in order to have clients you need ethics, professionalism, training and involvement. (well…actually you need these 4 in any field, not just here ;))

3. The possibility to facilitate, organise or produce events for those interested in personal development, adding to personal and professional experience. Plus an accelerated growth that such involvement offers you. Bonus: visibility for you and your personal brand. What's more, if you do a good job, the world will be more open to you. And now that everything is online you can do this on a low budget that does not include travel expenses and more.

4. Access to an international network of professionals, with more seniority. So this a good step where you can learn, inspire and exchange experience. This opened for me many doors: access to some personalities that created coaching models or started schools, and in my case, small circle discussions with authors I admire (example: Marcia Reynolds).

I just brushed the personal brand discussion - the fact that joining an organisation adds another brick or even more to what people know about you as a professional.

If you are part of a professional organisation, why did you join them?