Getting involved with a nonprofit organization can provide numerous business development benefits to your company or practice. But finding the right organization to get involved with can be a challenge. On this episode of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin Jones talks to Barbara Collura, President of RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association. They discuss the benefits that RESOLVE can give to a business in the fertility field, but also the major benefits they provide patients seeking fertility treatments.
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Welcome to Inside Reproductive Health, the shoptalk of the fertility field. Here, you'll hear authentic and unscripted conversations about practice management, patient relations, and business development from the most forward-thinking experts in our field.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley both want your patients, but there is a plan if you're willing to take action. Visit fertilitybridge.com to learn about the first piece of building a Fertility Marketing System--The Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Now, here's the founder of Fertility Bridge and the host of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin Jones.
GRIFFIN JONES: Today on Inside Reproductive Health, I'm joined by Barbara Collura. Barb is the President of the national infertility association, RESOLVE, and she has been since 2004. She's a nationally recognized expert on infertility and the family-building journey. She's worked with the WHO on infertility definitions and clinical guidelines, the same with ACOG, and she is served a four-year term on the Advisory Council of National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at NIH. You may have seen her on places like The Today Show, MSNBC, Fox and Friends, Nightline. You may have seen her received the distinguished service award from ASRM, but you probably just know her because Barb is so passionate about RESOLVE’s mission as the organization was a source of support and information for her during her own battle with infertility. Barb Collura, welcome to Inside Reproductive Health.
BARBARA COLLURA: Hey Griff! Thank you so much for having me. It's about time, huh?
JONES: It's about time, yeah, I would say so! We sort of teased it early on in the season by having Rebecca Flick on and wanted to have you on as well because I just see so much happening from RESOLVE and I think, even in the time that I've been in the field, your focus keeps adapting to what's happening in the moment. So let’s start from there--what's happening with RESOLVE right now?
COLLURA: I think one of my favorite stories is really how I met you, or how we met you.
JONES: Oh, boy!
COLLURA: And I think this is just very indicative of who you are. So I just started a Twitter account and--my own personal Twitter account that was work-related--and I started getting emails from you about how I was using Twitter and I was like, “Who? Who are you? What? Okay, what should I be doing? Let’s see!” And then we did a little bit of research and we were like, “Hey, this guy actually knows what he's talking about! We gotta meet this guy!” So that was how we became acquainted with you, Griffin, and the work that you do, because you were already out there, following us, but also looking at how we could be better. So we really appreciate that. So, yeah, RESOLVE is such a vital organization in this space--in the family-building space. We are the oldest and largest non-profit patient advocacy organization. Many people know us because of our support groups, which we've been running now for over 40 years. Some people know us because of National Infertility Awareness Week. And then, a lot of people know us because of our public policy and advocacy work which has, over our history--our 40+ year history--has had some ebbs and flows, but gosh, the last couple of years, Griff, we have been really hitting it with a lot of new state laws opening access for people, either fertility preservation, coverage, or IVF coverage, and then of course continuing to fight any kind of bad bills that still pop up. So we're really thrilled to be doing what we're doing. I really don't know anyone else in our space who's doing the kind of work that we're doing. I love the work that RESOLVE does, as you mentioned, it helped my husband and I so much on our journey, and it's just an honor to be able to give back every day.
JONES: Well because of that, because you have so many different opportunities popping up in different states--states like New York that are so close to having a mandate and I imagine others on the horizon--and then you've just said the threat of bad bills being able to sprout up almost anywhere and sometimes at the last minute. Have you found yourself becoming more focused on the legislative side, on the advocacy side, then previously?
COLLURA: Well, it's interesting because I don't know that I would really say that 10-11 years ago, we sat down and had some strategic discussion amongst our board and our staff and said, “Hey, let's spend more time on advocacy work!” But honestly, the circumstances probed us to do that. And really from 2008 until a few years ago, so many bad bills were popping up and really, Griff, who else is going to be out there fighting them? And that was what really kept us up at night was what if one of these bills moves, passes? And like, we don't even know about it! Kind of asleep at the wheel, if you will. So that really motivated us with such passion because no one else was stepping up and so we did. And we were really, you know, at a point where we kinda had to do it, had to just show up. And so we got, if you will, our legs under us and got the hang of it and sort of realizing, wow, not only are we successful and are we good at this, but we really have an important voice and so that really drove our advocacy effort. And then, so much was changing in the healthcare landscape with the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. And not really knowing where we were going at the state level with new laws to--new insurance laws, it was very, very quiet. And once things kind of settled down, a few years later with the Obamacare, we felt that there was an opportunity to, perhaps, start moving in the direction of state legislation again in a more positive way. And we formed a coalition called The Coalition to Protect Parenthood After Cancer and it's a group of organizations committed to insurance coverage for fertility preservation for people with cancer and other conditions that treatment, or that surgery, or that medication that you need to take could potentially cause infertility. So that group said, you know what, let's just go for it. Let's see what we can do at the state level with insurance coverage for fertility preservation and that was the year you saw Rhode Island pass, you saw Connecticut pass, and we started to realize, maybe there's an appetite back in the state legislatures for insurance laws. So going to those states that already had IVF coverage--Connecticut and Rhode Island did, we then went to Maryland, we went to Illinois, we are in New Jersey--but we started going to states that had already existing IVF laws and adding, if you will, that fertility preservation and they were passing! So that gave us a lot of momentum for New York, which is sort of, you know, the big brass ring and looking at IVF coverage there. In the meantime, we had an advocate in Delaware who got passage of IVF infertility preservation in the Delaware legislature. So success, quite honestly, brought more success and it gave us the confidence that state legislatures were now open and had an appetite for passing new insurance laws. Now we’re California, and we're looking at other states, so it's just it's really exciting.
JONES: Does that change who you are fundamentally as an organization by virtue of having this real new focus that you have to take to task?
COLLURA: That’s a great question. So I think if you knew our history, it's just a continuation because the states that have had those insurance laws for IVF for many years: New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, all of those were--for the most part--all of those were in place in large part because of RESOLVE and local volunteers. Maryland passed first and a group of people in Massachusetts got Massachusetts passed and RESOLVE was very involved in Connecticut, in New Jersey, and Illinois. So that was all done many years ago. And so we are just picking up part of our mission that had been quiet in part because of forces beyond their control--just an appetite that didn't exist at the state level very much for mandates and then, of course, Affordable Care really shut everything down at the state level for new mandates. So we wanted to continue that work, but it just wasn’t a good environment. And so I think what you're seeing now is just us picking that up again versus starting something that’s new and different.
JONES: Then how do you say in the pulse of being the community thought? Because I always look at RESOLVE as like being just the banner holder to the community and now with social media, there's, like, tons of different people in the community, and different blogs, and different groups and lots of different ways for people to connect with each other. I still, even with that, still see RESOLVE as sort of the banner holder, which is why I came to find you guys all those years ago and why I still tell every client when they start with us, you need to be a professional partner of RESOLVE because RESOLVE is at the center of the community and you want to leverage that in a good way by also serving the community because I think it benefits you. I know that you're not adding dozens of people your staff. So, how do you maintain that core of who you really are with all of these other things that vie for your attention?
COLLURA: You know, it’s a great question and we--I'm not gonna lie--it's tough and I wouldn’t say we struggle, but we are aware of that and we have to remain relevant. So you used the word community and I talk about community a great deal. I talk about networking. I talk about RESOLVE being about commitment and we do view ourselves as that town square, that place where everybody comes for the entire community--not just the patients, but people who are pursuing adoption, people who are healthcare providers, people like yourself who are supporting the community--everybody who is a part of this space, I like to say RESOLVE is where you're all going to come together. So yes, there's a lot of attention online and we do have a very strong online presence and I think we're one of the largest online presence--when you look at our online support community, which has about 50 or 60 thousand people every day, our social media presence, our website. We're very, very active. But we’re also in person. So if an online support community isn't doing it for you, RESOLVE has actually live support groups all over the country--we’ve got about 250 support groups that meet every single month across the country. We have state advocacy days. We have federal advocacy days. We have Walks of Hope. We’re not just about an online presence. We're about connecting with real people and with each other and professionals connecting with patients across the board. So that's how I look at what we're doing and our relevancy. You also brought up an interesting point about your clients and how you encourage them to become partners with RESOLVE. And can I just address that for a second?
JONES: Well, have I been doing it wrong? I’ve been doing it wrong and I gotta go back and redact something?!
COLLURA: No! I want to thank you publicly because that's really amazing that you do that and I know you do it because all of your clients are commercial members and are engaged and involved with RESOLVE. So you not only are saying that and advising your clients that, they're actually following through. So huge thank you to you! But what you are doing is for doing them a big favor and a service because when you think about RESOLVE--we’re a nonprofit organization. I'm not a marketing organization. We're not about click-throughs and eyeballs and and that sort of thing. People like you are advising clinics on marketing and patient experience and how to provide the best care and grow their business, growth their practice, if that's what they want to do, and to have to have a presence out there. Think of RESOLVE as the philanthropic entity in our space. I know in the cancer arena there are many cancer organizations and oncologists and cancer patients philanthropically support those organizations. RESOLVE is--that's what we are in the infertility space. So despite, you know, all the marketing needs that you might have, look at us as a philanthropic give. I don't know where your budget that's going to come from. In some practices, it actually does come from the marketing budget, in some it does not. But, I would really challenge practices to think about what are you doing going philanthropically for the community that you serve and by investing in RESOLVE, in a philanthropic way, you are helping the community that you're serving in a completely different way than what happens in the four walls of your medical practice. So I would just acknowledge that your patients have a lot of need and have needs beyond what you may be providing them and an organization like RESOLVE is helping to do that--whether that's advancing access to care, whether that's raising public awareness about the disease, whether that's responding to the media, the national media with accurate information. We are representing the patient voice at the WHO and a lot of organizations and entities where patients deserve to have a say and a place at the table. And so does that sound important to you as somebody who is in this space and gets up every day and is helping people? I would think so! So, do you do charitable donations to your college, to other--maybe you're into the arts? Think of RESOLVE as part of that philanthropic give that is coming from your practice and your own wallet and what is that going to be and make it happen every year. Look, if every practice in the country looked at RESOLVE in a philanthropic light and contribute based on the number of IVF Cycles you do or the patients you see--gosh, Griff, what if every practice said, you know what? For every patient we do an IVF cycle for, I’m going to donate five dollars to RESOLVE. Doesn't sound like much. Patients are paying $20,000, you’re going to maybe donate 5 bucks, 10 bucks for every IVF cycle that you're doing? Do you realize that that would be an amazing amount of investment in our organization that could make a profound difference in how we move this disease forward from an awareness and access perspective? So that’s the kind of challenge that I like to put out there and how I would like to kind of turn the view of how people look at RESOLVE and how they look at their investment in the work that we do.
JONES: I’d like to explore this a little bit because I talk a lot about philanthropy on my personal Instagram, my personal social media, so much on my Fertility Bridge channels or on the show, but I do talk a lot about business development, like community-focused business development, and you’re really making a distinction--marketing is one lens of looking at it, philanthropy is another. I think that unless someone is making a donation from their own personal bank account, especially if they're not a pass-through entity of their company, isn't a pass-through entity, unless they're making it anonymously, unless they're doing that, then it’s really hard to draw exactly where the line is between business development and be between philanthropy. And I think it's nice--and I think people should donate philanthropically to a number of different things. I think when it's in your line of business though that it's really--it just is business development unless you're straight up doing it anonymously. Because my philanthropic endeavors are Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, which is the organization that I volunteer with in Latin America and some people from the field are even coming down on me for my next trip, which I'm so pumped about; and Big Brothers Big Sisters, but they have nothing to do with how I build my business, or the clientele that I serve, so that really is something different philanthropically. We also contribute to RESOLVE and I don't think that it's out of something that is like hey, I am doing this just for attention, but it does also serve my business to do that. it's not like I do this one thing and I get this one client--that's a really crappy way of looking at community-oriented business development. But rather, I just know by the nature of human beings and by the nature of group function that by contributing to the community, my status in the community raises and that leverages better business opportunities one way or the other at some point. And because I'm a marketer, the case that I often make to my clients is one that is future-value focused because, as a marker, if I don't return my value, I get my head chopped off immediately, I constantly have to prove my market value. And so when I make the case for RESOLVE, it's one of this is the Town Square, this is the group that is already gathered the community for you, you have the opportunity to serve them which ultimately benefits you and can even benefit you from a business level anyways. And I'm making this distinction, Barb, and I’m harping on this a little bit because what I've heard from people sometimes, and I don't know if you and I've talked about this or now, I've definitely talked about it with Rebecca, but I've heard it multiple times. I've heard it from--they tend to be smaller groups--who say, “Why should we do anything with RESOLVE? They get the big donations from these big groups and those big groups, because they're the ones that have the bigger sponsorships, are the ones that get X level of attention or whatever back from RESOLVE.” And I'm pointing out to them that that's ass-backwards. That you have the opportunity to serve the community and by doing that, that's what raises your status, not the other way around. So it's like, here's your opportunity to gain, and here are the people that have already gathered the community together for you, and then people talk about you in support groups, and the one person that was going to write online a bad review ends up writing a good one. The one person that was never going to refer you, ends up referring you. And the people that were gonna drop out end up doing that one more cycle that get them successful. And all of those different things that do have a business aspect. So I guess you know, I've just given a hodgepodge of what I think of that nexus, but how do you see the community good--which you described is philanthropy--versus the just natural business development benefit that comes for people that do that?
COLLURA: If I could hit on a couple of points you brought up. First of all--
JONES: Because I hit eight in one speech!
COLLURA: Yeah, yes you did! Let me see if I can hit on some of those. We do have opportunities for people to sponsor certain things. For example, we have a Gala in New York, we have National Infertility Awareness Week, we do Walks of Hope, we have Advocacy Day. We have sponsorship opportunities and some of them are $5,000, some of them are higher than that and some of them are less than that. And so if the organization is going to choose to sponsor one of those, I'm going to thank them, I'm going to put their logo on, and I’m going to thank them. But I think we have opportunities for people, for companies, for clinics, to sponsor some of our events, to sponsor maybe a section on our website, and we're going to put that company's logo and we're gonna thank them, but we aren’t about thanking and promoting companies and clinics just because you know, they are big or whatever. So there’s, in my mind, there’s an equal playing field. If you want to participate, then we provide opportunities for that. But, I will say we have a lot of smaller practices that have really engaged with RESOLVE in ways that are unique to them and ways that really impact the organization. For example, we have a practice in Connecticut that really supports our Federal Advocacy Day and--Griff, you’ve come to Washington, you yourself have advocated on Capitol Hill--and this particular practice does a tremendous amount of outreach to their patient to get them to send letters to their members of Congress and then they always have a couple of their staff who come to Advocacy Day and they hand deliver and bring all those letters from their patients. And they do all these really cool outreach programs in their community leading up to Advocacy Day. And what a cool project. What a cool way for a practice to engage with the community, to engage with their patients, to show their patients, hey, we are walking the talk, we're going to show up, we care about you so much. We're going to be going down to Washington, DC and we're going to be fighting for your issues. So that's a way that they are providing tremendous value to our mission and it's not even a huge financial contribution to RESOLVE, but they're having a really positive impact on their patients and, like you said, there's a business side of that that probably isn’t making a lot of sense as well. So if there are opportunities for practice to get engaged with one aspect of RESOLVE’s mission, we’re there to help you and make that happen. It doesn't matter how big or how small you are, but if you’re just saying to yourself, you know, all you do is promote these organizations that can sponsor all these big events and we can't do that and there's no place for us, that's the wrong conversation. And we've done a poor job of explaining our value and our value proposition to you and why investing in RESOLVE is not only a smart move for you from a philanthropic perspective, but, as you say, on the business side, how that's going to impact the patient community that you serve. I don't really know if I answered your question, but I do want to emphasize that there are many ways that practices of all sizes support and engage with RESOLVE and our mission in a very impactful way.
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JONES: You've already given them something to offer their patients for free--the patients that desperately need it--and that's all of the online support groups, the in-person peer support groups, all of the resources for both peer groups and professionally-led groups, and that is something that people are really hungry for in general and something that still when I talk to most of those people to this day and I asked them, how did you hear about your group? It was not from their clinic. And I ask them, okay, what resources did your clinic give you about support? Almost always, they say, “Nothing.” And I know part of the reason is because they're getting so much darn information that--there might be a pamphlet in there, there might be something that some clinics are trying, but I still think there's a lot of clinics that aren't--and I think part of the reason for that is that there are people that are so terrified that people are going to talk trash about them. They're afraid of it about online or afraid of sending people to groups because what if they say something. I hear so many people say things about FertilityIQ, like do you not understand what FertilityIQ is?! Because they're just so worried about people talking trash on them--but we're human beings. Everybody talks trash at some point. Everybody gets trashed talked on them. It is a net-net game. You have more people advocating for you than talking trash, and the other people have less people advocating for them than talking trash. And if you're a person that says, “Listen, we just want you to have access to all of these resources. You are on a journey and there are things that we can help you with and we're going to do everything in our power to help you with the things we can. And the things that we just can't help you with, we at the very least want to give you these resources and let you know about them.” If you are sending people to RESOLVE support groups, for example, that way. I know of so many people that got their second clinic--the one that they ended up being happy with--because they were in a group and somebody said, “You know, I had to find this group on my own. I'm just not jiving with the people that I'm at right now.” So if the concern is that people are going to talk trash, well they’re going to do anyway, but the flip side is that there was somebody else in the group that says, “Well, I'm really happy with my group. They told me about this, they do all of these different things.” Guess where that first person went after that? And so I think if the concern is people are going to talk trash, they're going to do that anyway. You have a binary option of am I going to over serve people or under serve them, and that using RESOLVE’s already-existing, mostly-free resources is a great way to help over serve patients in ways you might not be already.
COLLURA: Well, you said it and I don't need to repeat all of it, but I agree with you a hundred percent. And I hope that your listeners hear me when I say this: we hear from patients over and over and over, the anger they have with their physicians because they did not tell them about RESOLVE. Because they did not tell them about resources that were out there. And just wow, they knew. I wasn't in a place to know everything I needed to know and why didn't they tell me?! And so, that is just that's an easy one! Easy, easy easy. Tell every patient about the resources. Can you imagine, you walk in for a consult or you walk him for your first appointment and the nurse, the physician, the people you interact with, say, “Hey, we just want you to know that there is a community and an organization specifically for you. It's a non-profit. It’s called RESOLVE. They are nationwide, in all these communities. We really support the work that they do. Here's how to find them: RESOLVE.org. Oh, by the way, they have support groups. And they have a number of ways you can get involved.” I just can't even imagine the positive difference that that would have on a patient experience at a practice if that was told to them. Look, I'm going to tell you a personal story. I saw a mental health professional during my infertility journey, and I'm not kidding you, every week that I went to her, she kept saying, “Have you contacted RESOLVE? Have you reached out to RESOLVE?” I mean, she was beating me over the head with you need to connect with RESOLVE. And number one, she was right and number two, look, I mean, you know, it changed my life. And I am so grateful to her and I have sent so much business her away because she was amazing and helped me, but she didn't keep it a secret. Why should all these medical practices? And if they think that RESOLVE support groups are the only place in the world where somebody's going to hear good news or bad news, they are, as you said, sorely mistaken. And flip it over. And you know, here's the thing, have the attitude of we’re. great. We're providing great service and we’re going to let patients know about all these resources out there, including RESOLVE, and so be it. But we stand by who we are and continue to provide great service. That's how I feel about it.
JONES: Well, let's talk about what that great service means going into the future. I just had Jamie Metzl on the podcast. I'm not sure if his episode will air after yours or before. I just interviewed him yesterday. But, we really long-balled and talked about just how assisted reproductive technology is becoming and will become the primary, if not exclusive, method for human reproduction and what that means beyond serving people who now come with a diagnosis as a result of infertility, but really expanding the rest of the population and other groups that that we serve now that are in need of ART such as same sex couples and single women and fertility preservation that is not oncology-related and all of these things coming down the pipeline. How does RESOLVE adapt in five years, ten? I know I don't have a 30-year plan because it's so freaking far out. But, what do you think?
COLLURA: Well, that's a great question and that's why nonprofits have to be constantly looking at the landscape, whatever field they’re in, have a strategic plan--it used to be strategic plans in nonprofits for like 5 or 10 years and you know, a 3 year plan is like the maximum. Interesting you should ask because RESOLVE, right now, is going through it’s next strategic planning process, as will be ASRM. ASRM will be undergoing a strategic planning process at the beginning of 2020, they started it now. RESOLVE is right in the process of doing that. So I don't anticipate a board of directors coming up with, you know, a radically different mission or focus for RESOLVE, but I do think we need to think about things like especially, what I call “elective egg freezing,” planned egg freezing, whatever the term is going to land on because that growth overtime is going to be really significant. And now, for those folks--those women are accessing the same limited practices and the same seats in the waiting room, and I worry about capacity. I brought this up to several people and there doesn't seem to be a lot of concern. So maybe I shouldn’t be concerned, but how do we, as a community, support people who are egg freezing because of a medical condition because they are in a very different frame of mind than people who are doing planning freezing, for example. You’ve got them commingled in the same practice. Is one of them hurting or helping the other? Are waiting lists going to longer? Or costs going up? Or costs going down? How does that interplay happen? And then what are going to be the needs of that infertility patient in access to care, in getting support. Are they going to be pushed out or are we going to see a real split? Like we're starting to see now, Griff, with clinics being exclusively planned egg freezing and then if you're on the IVF infertility side, you go in a different door and if you're on the planned egg freezing side, you go in a different door, you go down the street. So it'll be interesting to see. And then how does all this interplay with access happen because what-- I get beat up because I'm not out there fighting for insurance coverage for planned egg freezing and I'm like, I can't even get the cancer patients to get insurance coverage! I mean there’s somewhat of a process here where you think you'd start with the lowest hanging fruit and how we can get coverage for certain populations before we get others. And so I do think that if the planned egg freezing really grows, those folks are going to be demanding insurance coverage, and how is that going to impact the access that folks like need IVF for medical condition have never even been able to get? So these are all questions that I don't have answers for. I do agree with you that you and I sitting down to talk five years from now could look very different. So I think we have to be just, flexible as organizations. We have to be relevant and we have to be able to adapt and to change and--. One of the things about nonprofits is know your audience, stick to your core mission, and we do that really, really well. And so RESOLVE will always be looking at who is our audience, who are we serving, and are there people that makes sense for us to serve and if so, what does that look like? So all I can say to you is that I think we will continue to look at everything with the lens of how can we be relevant? How can we play a role? And how can we advance the ball? And if we don't feel like we're the right organization to help a certain group of people, we're not going to--why would we? But where we can be the most value, we're going to be there.
JONES: So, how do you--and I don't mean the collective you I mean you, Barb Collura, and I don't mean should, I mean actually do--how do you balance the visionary planning and reflection and thinking of the future value proposition of RESOLVE versus all the day-to-day responsibilities you have and the pragmatism? Do you, Barb Collura, ever unplug? Because I know when I send you a text, I'm getting a message back. Whenever I send you an email and I get a vacation responder from you, I'm like that doesn't matter! I'm going to get a response. I'm going to get a response from Barb in 3, 2--here it is! So I don't see you ever unplugging. I see you jumping on every single thing because you have so many things. So, how do you as the CEO prioritize? And do you ever just unplug and say, you know, I'm going to go to a cabin for five days, and just let all of the stuff in my head come out, and say, here's priorities one through four and this is how I'm gonna stay dark and make sure they get done versus the day-to-day reality of having to deal with all of the details that come to you?
COLLURA: Well, I did take a two-week vacation this summer, which I have not done in about 12 years and I went out of the country and I pretty much was unplugged. I will tell you it was awesome because not only was I really in the moment of where I was, but I came back very refreshed and I think that was important! So I do unplug. One of the things I actually do--it's actually funny you talk about unplugging because I actually feel like there’s so much--Griff, and I’m sure you feel the same way--there’s so much I need to keep up with. Like, oh my gosh, there's blogs I need to be reading, there's articles I should be reading, there's all kinds of different things. And remember, I'm not just talking about from where I sit, I’m not just talking about what’s happening in the fertility, reproductive, health space. I run a nonprofit. I mean, I’m trying to keep up with fundraising know-how. I went to a class last week here in DC on how do you do value assessment in healthcare? And there's just so much out there that I need to know about and I need to learn that I don't know about. So sometimes I just have to just say, I'm going to be about something completely different. And so I think that's really important. I mean, you talked about some charities and some organizations that are really important to you that are outside this space and I have the same. And I know I try and read for pleasure, not the latest fertility book that somebody has written. And yeah, I'm here in Washington and I'm a real political junkie, so I do, believe it or not, find that and entertaining and adventurous, but it is a changing and evolving space and I'm certainly not going to be the person who has all the answers. I've got a great team, I’ve got a great board, I have amazing corporate partners and we all really trust each other and we talk to each other And I think that that's a key part of running an organization--ensuring that you surround yourself with a lot of really smart people, and people that have expertise that you don't have, and that you are a good listener, and that you don't look at yourself as a smartest person in the room, you look at there's a lot of people who have something to say and I want to be the one who's listening and putting all those pieces together.
JONES: So Barbara, how would you conclude with all of how the field is changing, with where RESOLVE has come from, where you want to go with, what you need help with right now given that you have a number of people that work in the field--a lot of practice owners, a lot of physicians, a lot of nurses, a lot of practice managers--how would you want to conclude with them?
COLLURA: Well, without sounding like a cliche, instead of a practicing with a how can RESOLVE do for me, or what can RESOLVE do for our organization? Flip it around and say, what could we be doing for RESOLVE? When I look at the practices across the country that are most engaged with us and the companies that are most engaged with us, that’s how the conversation starts. How could we be helping RESOLVE? What do you need in our state? What do you need in our community? What role can we play? And that begins a really wonderful and exciting conversation! So I would challenge people out there to think about that. And call me, email me, our doors open, you don't even need to know my name! You can just email info@resolve.org and it'll get to me and just say what could we be joined for RESOLVE? And how can we be helping the mission of RESOLVE and the community we serve? And that opens the door to a fantastic conversation. I would also just say that our board is very laser focused on access-to-care. The status quo for our community is not acceptable. And I can't sit here in 5 or 10 years with the same set of circumstances for the community that we serve. If that's the case, we should have a whole leadership at RESOLVE because we're not doing our job. So if you care about access, join our efforts. But also, for those of you who are afraid of more patients having access to your services, I want to talk to you about that, because we hear that. I think it's completely unfounded, but I want to be a partner with you in talking about that. And look, there are a lot of companies out there that are going right to employers and working on on coverage and benefits and RESOLVE is doing it as well. We're doing it legislatively. We're doing it talking to companies. The landscape is changing and we are going to have more and more and more people demanding coverage from their employers and people demanding this of their legislators. So let's not be afraid of it. Let's figure out a way to work together. And I think that that's the only way, Griff, when we all are going to be working together that we're going to see some really amazing positive change happen, and we'd like to be really at the forefront of that at RESOLVE.
JONES: Ms. Barb Collura, the President and CEO of RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, thank you for coming on Inside Reproductive Health.
COLLURA: Thanks for having me, Griff. You do great work.
You’ve been listening to the Inside Reproductive Health Podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take action to make sure that your practice drives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society, visit fertiltybridge.com to begin the first piece of the Fertility Marketing System, the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Thank you for listening to Inside Reproductive Health.