A change in focus for SIFA
Boutique adviser association SIFA is going through a renaissance focussing on member development and getting away from lobbying.
Friday, January 6th 2023, 7:26AM 
3 Comments
by Kerry Meadows-Bonner
Another key change is moving from two conferences a year to just one.
As a non-profit adviser association, chairman Ross Sheerin says their decision to change and open up its, now annual conference to-non members while downsizing to one conference over a two-day period was just the beginning.
“What we saw over a few years when running two conferences is one of the two wasn’t well supported and we engaged in navel gazing, canvassing members and having a think about whether we were approaching things in the right way with members because membership had been shrinking with people retiring or going out feet first.”
He says the driving force behind that was listening to feedback from members of what they wanted to hear and see and saw the opportunity to implement a strategy of how they could attract and retain those memberships while providing benefits.
With that approach a success, their membership has grown as a response and Sheerin says it has enabled them to work further in advance and the details involved.
“What we are trying to do is plough back any surplus that the conference makes or any other activities for that matter and up the ante with the quality of speakers and the general deliverable from the conference with people. We’re on the right track and it suits members' needs more closely.”
With that in mind, their next focus is on driving membership numbers.
“We currently have 60 members with a scope to grow that further. But, we don’t want to be a mass market association. We want to keep it at such a number so people have a chance to talk to members at a conference, keep it intimate and so our sponsors can talk to people.”
“It’s also about logistics too when you add in 30-40 members at a conference there are certain constraints with availability of venues and the bigger you are the harder it gets to identify venues, costs etc.”
He says with the way trends are going in the industry, the number of advisers is shrinking and advocacy is an important part of future growth for SIFA.
“We do need to think about encouraging new people in the industry and the opportunities are there despite regulation and other things that go with that like experience, qualifications, licensing requirements. It’s a still a really good profession to be in in the long haul. The challenge to encourage people in and give them development paths.”
“I would like to think SIFA is welcoming to people and people can have free and frank conversations of things. The networking side of things I cherish as a hope for the future of SIFA so that members can pick up the phone, talk to other members and feel that support.”
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The headline to the story is out of synch with the body - the headiline says "getting away from lobbying" but the text has an unsupported phrase that "advocacy is an important part of future growth". Surely they both can't be right - surely. Or is failure to understand that just show how completely out of touch I have become in this WNW (woke new world).