Of the many functions that state associations servicing the security industry undertake are two under-sung and under-reported: Government affairs and scholarship. Companies don’t join associations thinking, “Hmmm, I’d like for us to contribute to the college scholarship fund for the son or daughter of a police officer, and it sure would be nice if we had better representation at the state capitol.” Instead, you more likely are looking at hands-on issues, like police response to alarms or helping to promote our industry to a wider customer base.
At SIAC, as a non-profit serving the electronic security industry across North America, we are keenly aware of the need for our supporters to understand the big reasons to join with us and the smaller ones. We’re networking with law enforcement, developing long-term relationships and collaborating on alarm management solutions. And when we come across anti-industry forces that are non-productive we’re in a position to defend our best practices and work to change mis-information that leads to issues like non-response to alarms, or sending customer fines to alarm companies for payment.
Our under-sung efforts that likely fly under the radar for many include the day-to-day of getting out to educate and inform communities, law enforcement, and, indeed, even security companies and the state and local associations they participate in, about how best to handle alarm management practices. Those are the “grind it out” activities that don’t get written about in the security trade pubs. Our people attend meetings, provide materials, present at events — all to keep key constituents informed, and further the interests of the electronic security industry.
Like those government affairs and scholarship programs, we don’t tout these efforts, but for you our supporters, it’s important you have an awareness of those extra things we do to contribute to your bottom line, and the “image” of our industry. How well every company does in a given state or community can often come down to collectively how well our industry comes across to officials.
So, we hope you keep contributing to our cause if you’ve been an ongoing supporter. If you haven’t been a contributor, we hope you consider becoming one in 2020, remembering we sell no products or services, we have no membership dues. We depend on every company to support us! We are advocating across the country for you, and it’s only with your support that we can continue to further our mission to promote sound alarm management practices.