Our Members: We are women business and community leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs. Our 400 members come from organizations ranging in scope from large corporations to small businesses as well as from the public and the service sectors.
Our Focus:
- Offering members opportunities for business and social exchange.
- Providing leadership on issues affecting professional women and the community.
- Contributing financial and volunteer resources to programs that affect long-term change for women and children in need.
- Being committed to diversity within our membership, our programs and the issues we choose to address.
Our Membership Connections: Bi-weekly meetings, Board and committee participation, special interest groups (such as Life’s Too Short, book and investment clubs, entrepreneur and golf groups).
Our Community Connections: Under the auspices of the PD Charitable Fund, our members have made significant contributions to organizations serving women in our community. Recent recipients of the Charitable Fund have been The Dominican Center, PEARLS for Teen Girls, The Benedict Center, Women’s Fund, SET Ministry, the YWCA of Greater Milwaukee and Meta House and Milwaukee Women’s Center. We have raised over $1,000,000 since the inception of the Charitable Fund in 1985.
Other Community Connections: The Community Affairs Committee is charged with exploring opportunities and making recommendations to the Board to enhance PD involvement in and stature with respect to community leadership initiatives such as:
- Providing leadership to solve community issues, such as race relations.
- Promoting women in politics and other community leadership positions.
- Influencing change through the use of PD members collective economic power.
- Reacting to and developing strategies regarding current events.
BY INVITATION Membership in Professional Dimensions is by invitation. Potential members must be engaged in professional work, whether or not for compensation, and must demonstate an interest in professional growth. Community involvement is looked upon favorably by the Recruitment Committee. Membership recruitment goals are developed by the Membership Committee, which strives to strengthen the diversity and leadership of Professional Dimensions membership and maintain a broad spectrum of occupations within the organization. Target populations include non-traditional or under represented occupations, executive women in the company/organization, women of color, younger women with leadership promise, other community leaders.
Current members may sponsor someone for membership by filling out a brief sponsorship form about the potential member and submitting it along with a resume on the prospective candidate to the Recruitment Chair (form located in Member Only extranet). Candidates accepted by the Recruitment Committee must then be approved by the Board of Directors.
New members are responsible for an initiation fee of $125, which is a one-time fee payable when joining the organization. All members pay annual dues, which are currently $335. Dues are invoiced in September and are payable upon receipt. Members are expected to support the current Professional Dimensions Charitable Fund project though monetary and/or volunteer support and are expected to attend half of the meetings each year. Meetings do involve the cost of a meal and range from $25 for a breakfast meeting to $35 for dinner meetings.
New member receptions are held several times each year, providing an opportunity for new members to meet Board members and other new members. At these receptions, Professional Dimensions’s history and committees are described and new members are encouraged to get involved. Committee participation is the best way to meet other Professional Dimensions members and benefit from membership in the organization.