As a clinician, I try to group problems together in hopes I can make one diagnosis that fits all the clinical signs of the patient in front of me. I feel like this same process applies to the WVMA at the end of each year. Looking back at all we’ve accomplished this year and thinking about where we’re headed, my one diagnosis for the WVMA in 2025—“Innovation.”
For those of you who own your own practice or business, you know innovation can be both exciting and scary. The WVMA needs to be innovative to continue to provide value, but we certainly want to minimize the risk of missing the mark and negatively affecting financials. Innovation takes courage, and when successful, it benefits every member of the organization.
Let’s take a look back at the innovative successes of the WVMA in 2025:
Getting Creative with Events
It takes a forward-thinking team to imagine new member events, and this year was no exception. Three creative ways to earn CE credits were introduced in 2025: Spring Training, Vets at Vortex, and Flight School. In total, over 300 members and 25 sponsors took part in these educational fun fests. This level of engagement allows us to offer members affordable in-person options and still achieve our revenue targets for scientific CE—in fact, we exceeded those targets by over 2% this year. (Wait til you see what we’re planning for 2026!)
Go PAC Go!
In an era where politics seem to infiltrate every discussion, a robust PAC is more important than ever, especially as the WVMA forges the path forward for a rural veterinarian loan repayment program. Building relationships with local and state politicians through PAC contributions allows us to create programs that benefit veterinarians and their clients across the entire state. With less than $2,000 in our PAC, we needed to find new ways to highlight the importance of donations. Our innovative solutions: bolster the PAC through the sale of super-cool Flight School t-shirts and cozy winter hats at the leadership event featuring fun animal sounds embroidered on the cuff. Both were big hits with event attendees. We hope to build on this approach and keep boosting the PAC.
Room to Grow
It’s not often you find newer office space for a better price, but with the sublease of our new WVMA office location, we improved the quality of our home office while actually decreasing our overall rent cost by about $10,000. We were also able to grow our checking and savings accounts with full receipt of the ERC (employee retention credit) from the IRS, with nearly $121,000 received in 2025. And, our investments have grown over $95,000 since last year, leaving us in a healthy place to continue our innovation for years to come.
The WVMA Board and staff thank each of you for helping us continue our mission to enrich the lives of veterinarians and doing so with fiduciary responsibility to our members. We’re proud of the innovative changes we made in 2025 and look forward to bringing new ideas to life in 2026.