At its June House of Delegates (HOD) in Philadelphia, the ANA will consider significant bylaws changes intended to make it a more futuristic and broadly inclusive organization, and to meet the pressing and varied needs of a diverse RN population and the patients for whom they provide care.

These bylaws changes are the latest in a series of concerted initiatives that the association has undertaken to build on its strengths to better address the challenges facing the nursing profession.

In 1999, the ANA House of Delegates (HOD) passed bylaws changes designed to ensure the ANA's viability and strengthen the nursing profession as it moved into this millennium. These included:

* creating a national labor entity -- United American Nurses (UAN) -- to support ANA's constituent member associations (CMAs) in their collective bargaining efforts;

* creating a task force, which in 2000 became the Commission on Workplace Advocacy (CWPA), to develop tools and strategies to support CMAs in their workplace advocacy programs for individual nurses;

* creating the Federal Nurses Association as an ANA constituent to represent active duty nurses employed by the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as uniformed Public Health Service nurses;

* streamlining policymaking regarding regulation and legislation by consolidating the groups that create ANA policy into the Congress on Nursing Practice and Economics.

Since then, the ANA has continued reshaping itself to meet current and future challenges. In September 2000, in response to a call by the Constituent Assembly to be more responsive, the Board of Directors created a Futures Task Force, a diverse group of 30 individuals representing every segment of the ANA, as well as potential members, such as students and members of specialty and minority nurses associations. In beginning its work, the task force determined that changes to the ANA should result in an association that fosters a "culture of trust," unifies the profession to speak with one strong voice, and operates nimbly and strategically through clarity of purpose and roles. In looking ahead at the ANA that could emerge in the next 10-20 years, the task force defined a "big audacious goal" for the association: To be the unifying force to advance quality healthcare for all.

"The purpose is to get everyone to think expansively -- to think really big -- as we look ahead 10, 15, 20 years, and beyond," said Mary Foley, MS, RN, who as current ANA president, and first vice president before that, has been a leader in the process of reshaping ANA for the past several years.

The task force identified ANA's strengths and challenges in meeting that goal. Among the ANA's strengths are its recognized role as the voice of nursing, strong federal and state advocacy programs, role as the keeper of the Code of Ethics for Nurses, ability to address workplace issues through both collective bargaining and other workplace advocacy strategies, and operation of a broad enterprise that provides credentialing, research and sharing of best practices through the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the American Nurses Foundation and the American Academy of Nursing. Challenges for the association include the low rate of RN s participating in professional organizations -- 80 percent of registered nurses are not members of any nursing association, which means that the ANA does the work of the profession without the support of a vast number of nurses, even though all nurses benefit from that work. Thus, attracting nurses in increasing numbers and diversity to engage in shaping their profession through the association became a key objective for the task force.

As the task force set out to evolve the ANA, it became apparent that new structural relationships would be necessary to reach the desired future. The task force defined the broad parameters of a new infrastructure. Its work was shared with stakeholder groups and benefitted from the perspectives of these nursing leaders, including participants in the 2001 HOD and Constituent Assembly. Carrying forward the outcomes of the task force's efforts, the Board of Directors created two different bylaws models and submitted them to the Committee on Bylaws (COB) for its consideration. The COB sought and received broad input on the two models through field review. As a result, the COB synthesized the models and the comments into a set of proposed bylaws revisions that will be put before the HOD in June.

The proposed bylaws provide for expanded membership options to increase the numbers of nurses connected to the ANA and strengthen both the ANA and its CMAs. Specifically, the new bylaws would allow for RNs to join the ANA directly at the national level if they choose not to be members in their states. It is envisioned that some states might also choose to offer a state- only membership option. Under current bylaws, individual RNs can only join through a CMA and as CMA members, are automatically granted membership rights from ANA. The proposed changes also allow for information-only Web-based associates who would have access to information provided on a new Web site but no voting rights or other benefits. In addition, the proposed bylaws provide national nursing organizations that are organizational affiliates of the ANA with one voting seat each at the Policy Delegate Assembly (which replaces the HOD).

As new membership options were explored to provide multiple ways for nurses and nursing organizations to connect to the ANA, it was found that ANA's status as a labor organization places some constraints on the types of options that are possible under the law. Therefore, the proposed bylaws revision would move the two labor components (collective bargaining and workplace advocacy) to autonomous but connected entities, thereby removing the mantle of a labor organization from ANA. The two autonomous organizations would enter into affiliation and services agreements with the ANA and become Associate Organizational Members.

"ANA is still committed to strengthening collective bargaining and workplace advocacy efforts -- that commitment does not change," states Foley. "This proposed bylaws change reflects the reality of how advocacy is accomplished in various states and various workplaces.

'The decisions we make in June will shape our association for years to come. The potential for growth is tremendous -- growth in members, growth in resources and growth in power," Foley said.

The HOD will discuss, debate and vote on the proposed bylaws revisions at a special session during its June meeting. Watch The American Nurse and go to www.NursingWorld.org for updates.