How to Start a PCP Chapter
To download all of the materials to start a chapter in one package, click here.
1. Join our network by creating a personal profile on the PCP website.
2. Read PCP’s mission and approach, the chapter expectations and benefits, and other relevant sections of our website that highlight what we believe and what our chapters do.
3. Email PCP’s National Field Organizer Aaron Cook to clarify any questions and to receive resources and support for recruiting your team.
4. Recruit your core leadership team.
A. Write a recruitment email explaining why you would like to form a PCP Chapter in your community. Make it personal: explain your frustrations, excitement, and motivations for creating change in your local primary care community. Use these questions to guide your writing: Why are you interested in forming a PCP Chapter? Why were you compelled by our mission statement? Why do you think starting a PCP Chapter in your local community will be beneficial? What are your beliefs about primary care that coincide with the work PCP does? See
sample email templates.
B. To be a coalition-builder, do a wide sweep to find chapter leaders from different primary care fields and stages of training. The more diverse your leadership team, the more successful your Chapter will be in reaching all members of your local primary care community, and in leveraging POWER.
Click here for more tips on how to ensure diversity in your team.
C. Once you’ve formed a core leadership team, send the following information about each of your core leaders to aaron.cook@primarycareprogress.org.
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Name
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Stage of training (e.g. student, resident, faculty provider, community provider, etc.)
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Current or intended field of training
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Email address
5. Use the local needs assessment tool with your core leadership team to think through local challenges facing the primary care community.
6. Draft preliminary short-term and long-term goals for your chapter based on the needs assessment. Decide how you will keep track of your goals, and who on your team is responsible for which tasks. Check out our tips describing examples of good short- and mid-term goals.
7. Set up a conference call between your leadership team and PCP’s field staff to review your goals and strategize ways to make your kick-off event a launching pad for sustained local action. Contact Aaron Cook to schedule the call.
During the call, we will discuss:
a. What PCP is all about and what it means to be a Chapter.
b. The unique needs of your local primary care community (e.g. need for more mentoring between students and clinicians; desire to get trainees involved in inspiring new models of primary care delivery; etc.).
c. Concrete goals you can accomplish in the next 6-12 months.
d. A strategic plan to build an effective leadership team and launch activities to achieve your goals.
e. An exciting kick-off event for your chapter.
8. Hold your first kick-off event/meeting (funding from PCP is available - see the funding proposal form and reimbursement request form). This is your chance to announce yourself publicly to the community at-large, and to begin building a broader base of support. Remember to evaluate your event!
a. Do outreach similar to when you were recruiting chapter leaders to recruit chapter members; see email templates below.
b. Encourage folks to join your chapter. They can login to your webpage and create their own Primary Care Progress member profile to enable them to access our special resources, find local mentors, and get involved in local projects to improve primary care delivery or training.
c. Discuss the goals you want to accomplish and ask for feedback on shaping them to best meet the needs of our community and interests of your constituents.
CONGRATULATIONS! You are now an official PCP Chapter. Welcome to the PCP community!
