What Mike and Cliff said. And I would like to add this: There is a new publication on the PPFA website under the benefits section called PPFA Today. This two-sided pdf lists all of the benefits, including the Member Advantage Program. It was designed to be circulated as a recruitment tool. Next week there will be a link to the Member Advantage.
There are a lot of reasons that the Member Advantage was not ready to roll out in June. It took a long time for all of the PPFA stakeholders to review and comment. This review process, involving every chapter, every committee, and every board member, allowed us to anticipate a lot of potential problems as well as tweak it so that we were supplying the best possible product for our members.
While there was considerable staff support, particularly in the later stages of developing the graphics and the all-important selling the program to the vendors, the majority of the planning and development was done by volunteers--and some very busy volunteers. We were working on this program nearly every day since shortly after the first of the year. (854 posts in the committee threads!). And a lot of the groundwork was done last year.
We are planning for this to be an on-going benefit for members, and there is still a lot of work to do. It is very important that the program works well for our vendor-members as well as the general membership. If the vendor members don't continue to sign-on and others don't join-in, the program will not thrive.
So, while this is a lengthy post, it is the short answer as to why everything wasn't ready to roll out earlier. There have been some announcements in the last few weeks that list the vendor-member participants, including an article in For Members Only. An email blast was also sent to the membership. It certainly hasn't been a case of trying to keep it hidden from the membership or the general public!
My views may be biased since I chaired the membership committee this year.
