Signature May/June 2015 - 44

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MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION
FIGHTS FOR FLINT
No story about associations impacting the Flint water crisis would be
complete without mentioning the Michigan Chapter of the American
Academy of Pediatrics (MIAAP), whose board member Mona HannaAttisha conducted and wrote the research that exposed the truth about
the water poisoning of Flint children and other residents.
As an advocate at the state level for legislation and policy that improves
child health, the Flint water crisis became a major part of MIAAP's activity as
soon as the story broke. "Once the crisis was acknowledged, our members
immediately said, 'What are we going to do for
these kids?'" said Denise Sloan, MIAAP's executive director, in a recent interview with the
Michigan Society of Association Executives'
member magazine, Association IMPACT.
"Our role was to put together a process
to do the things that our members
said we needed to do."
MIAAP members developed
programs to mitigate the effects
of lead poisoning in four key
areas: health, education, nutrition, and literacy. "Our
members in Flint developed
spreadsheets for each of these
areas to determine what our
help could look like," Sloan explained.
Resources to support the
members' initiatives needed to come
from the state of Michigan, so the association put together an advocacy strategy to raise
the funds. "We helped by getting local and state governments to provide
the needed resources and put together a plan for how the resources will
be spent," Sloan said in the Association IMPACT interview.
MIAAP also coordinated the efforts of various advocacy groups, "so
that we were all singing from the same hymnal," as Sloan put it, "and
when we went to the legislature, we were all asking for the same things."
As a result of MIAAP's efforts, a supplemental bill was passed by the
Michigan legislature in January to get the services needed for Flint children ages six and under. "That's the age that when most significant brain
development is going on," explained Sloan, "so we got funding for the
programs that this age group needs most."
Also, the bill funded nine school nurses - one for every school in Flint.
Almost unbelievably, before the crisis, there was only one school nurse
for the entire Flint school district.
And MIAAP is not done yet. "We are calling for another round of resources to come to Flint children in the state's 2017 budget, and the association is working very hard and collaborating with other groups to
help make that happen," she said.

MAY/JUNE 16

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members love the frequency and detail of
our communications," Hogan says. "We
also provide information through committees of specific communication threads."
Interestingly, due to the great attention
the bottled water industry has received in
recent years, Hogan says IBWA's communications mission has changed. "We used
to be a traditional association communicating with its members and committees,"
he says. "Now, we've shifted our messaging to a consumer-facing frame. In recent
years, our efforts have concentrated on
communications going to consumers."
IBWA's website, bottledwater.org, is its
flagship information source. The association also has a strong social media
presence; its bottledwatermatters.org is
branded for Facebook, and IBWA is
also big on Instagram, Pinterest, and
YouTube. All of this is accomplished
with a small communications team of
3.5 people: One person is dedicated to
social media and videos, one focuses on
the magazine and content development,
and a PR firm handles some media communications and graphics.
"We're small, but we have a big footprint," Hogan says. "Our main message is
that bottled water is the healthiest packaged drink out there."
Since the crisis made headlines, IBWA
has used its social media channels to
talk about Flint and the issues related to
the industry, "but we have to be careful
because we don't want to seem like we
are capitalizing on the crisis," he points
out.
"I've even had people ask: 'Isn't this
great news for the bottled water industry?'
and we're like, 'No, it's terrible news for
us.' It's very personal to our members.
IBWA is being very sensitive to it. We're
not trying to make this some story about
why bottled water is so great." n
Carla Kalogeridis
(ckalogeridis@association
mediaandpublishing.org) is
publisher and editorial
director of AM&P.

http://www.bottledwater.org http://www.bottledwatermatters.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signature May/June 2015