What do you really get from membership organizations? NEN members don't need to ask. Our impact is direct, individual and results-oriented.
As you decide whether to join NEN for the first time, or renew your membership with us, consider how we're different and why you need us.

For starters, as a regional organization, we don't hire expensive lobbyists or offer discount insurance (you should be getting these services through your state and national groups). Instead we continually inform and influence state and national policymakers and funders who have come to know and respect New England Network.

We provide cash or resources to members through joint fundraising, mini-grants, and collaborative grant submissions. That's right. You can get cash, through us.

We recognize your expertise and desire to improve your effectiveness by inviting you to participate in research projects that inform practice and policy and have maximum impact on the field. Through us, you advance the profession, and become better known within it.

We tackle the most difficult issues, such as outcomes requirements, by doing extensive piloting in agencies like yours and developing site-specific, tested solutions. In the outcomes area, we developed an inexpensive training and software package, ImProve Outcomes, that is substantively different from anything else out there. We don't just wring our hands about problems in the field. We actually do something.

We carefully review and synthesize important information to produce an original and relevant biweekly e-bulletin, Into Practice, and website. Care about funding? Who doesn't? Check out our Grantwriter's Resource bulletins and our year-long series of affordable webinars like the recent Proving Your Worth: Making the Evaluation Requirement Work for You. Everything we produce is personalized, tailored and individualized, nothing pre-packaged or boilerplate.

We don't spend big bucks and charge high fees for regional conferences that you can't afford to send your staff to anyway, but instead co-host regional events (for which we frequently offer scholarships and travel stipends), and provide in-service training and consultation in key areas of program and organizational development like assessment and evaluation, youth development, group facilitation, strategic planning, transitional living, spirituality and youth, and much, much more.

You are part of a network that comprises an amazing system of care for children and youth in New England. With you as part of our local membership base, NEN is able to leverage another constellation of state, national and academic partners, and together we shore up, give voice to, and advance our collective agenda to advance the field.

At this critical juncture for the profession, as the baby bomber leadership prepares to retire, (see our report, Goodbye, Hello, and NEN Roundtable Talking About My Generation), NEN and our collaborative partners will be there with you, asking and answering the important questions and generating creative solutions.

As always, our dues are based on a sliding scale, are largely underwritten and are therefore extremely reasonable. Old memberships expire Sept. 30; the new membership year begins on Oct. 1. So act right away. You can do everything you need online, by clicking the link below. Or, if you prefer, you can mail in your form and dues. Just do it before the new year begins.

We're saving a place for you at the table.

Melanie Goodman
Executive Director

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