Creating a legacy in healthcare
The Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) Annual Scientific Meeting expects to leave a legacy in improving healthcare outcomes for women.
A conference has the potential to leave a meaningful legacy for a community and affect real change. Business Events Wellington (BEW) defines legacy as a deliberate activity produced by a conference to achieve both the organisation’s strategic objectives and positive change. These impacts may not be something the general public sees, they can be specific to your association or industry.
Conferences bring together industry leaders and experts from across the country and the world. They generate attention from media, government agencies, and local stakeholders. This offers a great opportunity to address challenges. By identifying legacy activities and leveraging these, you can show everyone why your conference matters, as well as leaving a lasting positive impact.
As part of its legacy programme, the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) aimed to address a gap in the understanding of labour and birth outcomes due to a lack of data. Adding specific sessions into the Annual Scientific Meeting programme saw 25 hospitals share and examine comparable data, using the Ten Group Classification System.
How do you incorporate legacy into your conference?
Identify your needs
The crucial first step is to identify the challenges that you face. This could relate specifically to your association, the wider industry, or to general society. Legacy goals can fit within many categories, such as: sectorial, political, economic, social, or environmental. Some of the recurring goals BEW has seen in its legacy programme relate to increasing collaboration, growth, investment, or diversity within industries. It's important to be clear about what your goals are. They will help you to identify activities that can bring about the change you would like to see.
Decide on actions that address your needs
A legacy activity doesn’t need to be large. It could be something small yet deliberately planned to create a positive impact. You may already have something in your programme that fits the bill. It could be as simple as a specific session to educate your attendees on an issue, or inviting policymakers to attend to build relationships. Or, it could be opening the conference doors to the public to raise awareness of the work that your industry does.
Identifying and leveraging parts of the conference programme that align with your objectives means you don't have to put resources into creating a new activity. If you do want to create a new activity, it’s a great idea to involve local stakeholders. They can provide support and help the initiative continue after the conference is over.
Measuring the impact
Create a plan to measure change over time to understand your conference's impact. Data collected through delegate surveys captures direct outcomes from the conference. It can offer both quantitative and qualitative insights. Quantitative data proves that a change has occurred. Qualitative data can show why and how the change occurred. Having this data ensures you have evidence and narratives when sharing the conference successes.
Maximising your impact
Storytelling is key to leveraging the impact of your legacy activities. Sharing the outcomes of your work with attendees, sponsors, stakeholders, and the media is a powerful way to show the impact of your conference. This can spark further benefits for your organisation. It could mean increased funding and sponsorship, and better public awareness of your industry’s issues. It could even prompt higher attendance at future conferences.
Business Events Wellington can help
We can support you with your legacy activities. We can help identify your goals and provide advice on legacy activities. Our team can connect you to local stakeholders who could be involved, and share the story of your conference’s positive impacts. No matter what stage your conference legacy journey is at, reach out for support and to learn more.
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