Professional Starting Guide

The Society for News Design, an international membership organization, exists to improve journalism through good design.

The advantages for local groups to becoming an affiliate to SND include:

  • Access to an international network of professionals doing similar work.
  • Suggestions about speakers in your area to serve as “visiting” lecturers.
  • A link from the SND Web site to your home page.
  • Assistance in judging competitions, critiquing newspapers and Web sites, etc.

The “local” SND contact (regional director or state coordinator) working with your allied colleagues can provide assistance in hosting an SND workshop or other function. This assures that participants will have opportunities to work alongside, and spend informal time with, some of the best practitioners in the news industry.

The advantages for individuals to be members of an SND affiliate include these:

  • Personal copy of “The Best of Newspaper Design” annual book every fall
  • Personal copy of Design, a quarterly journal reflecting the current issues in the field
  • Personal copy of Update , a newsletter about SND and its members
  • A listing in SND's online Membership Directory
  • Discounts on SND events and the events of partner organizations
  • A discount on a listing in SND's online consultants database
  • Mailings from SND about workshops; Quick Courses on Design, Ad Design, Infographics and New Media; and other Society activities
  • Opportunities to serve as judges or facilitators in SND competitions
  • Inclusion in a worldwide network of SND members.

Starting a professional affiliation: This requires the work of one or more regular members. The Society itself sets no specific regulations. Here is a step-by-step approach that has worked in Spain, Germany, Scandinavia and France It is aimed at journalists and consultants who wish to start an SND affiliate.

  • Find a core of five or more professionals who are interested in SND and willing to do the work.
  • Call an organizational meeting, or use the Internet or postal service to let prospective members know you want to start an affiliate. SND can provide names and addresses of existing members in your region.
  • At the meeting, explain what SND is and what organizing an affiliate hopes to accomplish. Solicit ideas. Are there projects they would like to do? Speakers they would like to hear? Some examples of projects: a symposium or panel discussion on news design, information graphics, newspaper color, coverage of a particular news event, designing for the Web; a local contest; a survey or other research project.
  • Decide how to fund the affiliate. Will there be local dues? Sales? A competition? Workshops or seminars? Most affiliates use a combination of these.
  • If the core group expresses enthusiasm and a willingness to go ahead, appoint or elect interim officers. Assign officers and committees specific organizational duties, such as writing a charter, getting funds, planning programs, handling publicity and dealing with the publishers. You don’t have to do any of these things unless you want to. You and/or the officers will have to decide what relationships to formalize.
  • Create the name and purpose of the group (It should not be SND, but rather SND/Name. We currently have SND/S, which stands for SND/Scandinavia, SND/DACH for the German speaking countries, SND/España and SND/France.)
    • Agree on a list of officers.
    • Create a financial statement.
    • Write a Constitution and bylaws.
    • Fulfill any other legal requirements (incorporation, bank accounts, etc.) as required by local business practices and laws.
  • Determine whether all affiliate members will join SND or not. All Spanish affiliate members are automatically SND members: in Scandinavia, it is an option to belong. There are several ways to handle this, outlined below.

Working with SND headquarters in Rhode Island, USA: When you start to organize a group, notify SND. Provide copies of the information and documents that you require: a constitution or bylaws, charter, financial statements, and an up-to-date roster of officers and members.

Dues: Dues can sometimes lead to confusion. Affiliates must explain to prospective members that SND has NO financial relationship with your affiliate. Each affiliate must be financially self-sufficient. Affiliate members must understand that they do not belong to SND until SND headquarters receives their SND dues (presently USD $85 and $100 per year for professionals, depending on circulation, and an additional $20 a year to handle overseas postage).

Overseas affiliations: Experience reveals that there is no meaningful discount available in bulk shipping materials to a single address overseas. Mailing the annual book, for instance, costs $1.40 within the United States and slightly over $15 for all our overseas members, including Canada. Shipping items in bulk is a little cheaper (depending on the country), but bulk shipping requires payment of customs duties on the content. This brings the cost to the same level as or higher than individual mailing.

With that in mind, non-U.S. news designers who wish to organize an SND affiliate should be prepared to tell members that the cost will be at least $85 (or $100, depending on circulation) PLUS an additional $20 (just like all the other overseas members) for postage tp cover SND dues. Depending on the country, we may ship bulk or we may ship individual pieces.

Probably the best way to handle this is to require two payments from members. One payment, made out to the SND office, covers SND dues. Fees must be in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. bank, or paid by MC, VISA or American Express. The second, made out to the local affiliate, will fund affiliate activities. Members can undertake responsibility for sending the SND membership checks to headquarters. Or, the local organizer could collect the checks for SND and send them to headquarters.

SND/DACH, for example, permits individual members to send membership dues to SND headquarters and makes no attempt to collect funds for SND membership. This method usually guarantees that members will get something from SND immediately after the dues check is cashed. Both Scandinavia and Spain transmit dues with their affiliation credit card, as that avoids bank draft fees, dollar exchange fees and need to get checks drawn in US dollars. Another method: Require affiliate members to submit checks and membership forms to the local affiliate for both dues, and have the local affiliate write a single check to SND when it submits the list of members. This is often the least confusing method, but until SND headquarters receives a membership check and membership list, SND cannot send anything to the members.

Reporting: Once a year, usually prior to the SND spring board meeting, the executive director requires a report from each affiliate's president. This one-to-two page report, filed electronically, summarizes the affiliate’s membership and activities in the past year. The report becomes part of the official SND minutes.

Other duties: The president of any professional affiliate has a seat on the SND Board of Directors, and is expected to attend two board meetings yearly, one in the spring and one in the fall, usually at the site of the SND Annual Workshop & Exhibition.

An SND affiliate is formed by, and exists for, its members. If you are thinking about starting an SND affiliate or have questions about it, contact SND.