How AIGA Colorado runs
We keep it simple. Five goals. Three event types. Nobody does it all alone. It ladders up to our mission: AIGA advances design as a professional craft, strategic advantage, and vital cultural force.
Five Goals
Every event, dollar, and volunteer hour should ladder up to one of these. If it doesn’t, we probably shouldn’t do it.
- Membership & growth: Keep members engaged, bring new designers in
- Professional development: Help members get better at their craft and careers
- Community & belonging: Place where designers feel known and connected
- Emerging talent: Bridge students and early-career designers to practice
- Financial health: Enough money to run without heroics or burnout
Types of Events
Head
Speaker talks, panels, portfolio reviews, case study breakdowns, career workshops. Members leave smarter about their craft or industry. | ~3 to 4 per year | Ladders to professional development
Heart
Casual mixers, mentorship kickoffs, member celebrations, coffee crawls, affinity meetups. Members leave feeling known. |~2 to 3 per year | Ladders to community & belonging
Hand
Hands-on workshops, design jams, studio crawls, live crit nights, collaborative builds. Designers making things together. | ~3 to 4 per year | Most planning effort, highest ROI
We aim to protect the board from these common challenges
- Overprogramming. Twelve ambitious events with a burned-out board is worse than eight good ones. Cut volume first, protect balance last.
- Only a few people do everything. If one person is booking venues, posting on Instagram, and running meetings, the chapter is one resignation away from collapse.
- No promotion lead time. Events planned 2 weeks out get 12 attendees. Lock details 3+ weeks ahead.
- All Head, no Heart. Boards default to speaker events. But people renew because of relationships. Protect the social calendar.
- No succession planning. Recruit next year’s board mid-year, not in a panic at year-end.