The NSGC nominations process is as follows:
- Nominations are submitted by NSGC members for themselves or others.
- Nominees are notified and asked for their willingness to be considered for the slate.
- If willing to be considered, nominees submit a CV and answers to a set of questions (see Appendix B) designed to determine their leadership experience, assess their leadership skills, determine how their values align with those of the NSGC Board Culture statement, and identify the diversity of perspectives/experiences they might be able to bring to the Board.
- Nominee materials are reviewed by the Nominating Committee, and committee members discuss current strategic needs of the Board and how that compares to nominee qualifications. The decision is then made regarding which nominees will be interviewed by the Nominating Committee
- Nominee materials are reviewed by the Nominating Committee members, who then develop additional individualized questions to ask based on the responses to the candidate application questions. Nominees are also asked general questions (Appendix C) to further assess skills and areas of expertise.
- All Director At Large and Secretary/Treasurer-Elect nominees are interviewed by telephone by a member of the Nominating Committee. All President-Elect candidates are interviewed by two Nominating Committee members, and these interviews are recorded to allow all Nominating Committee members to watch and listen to the interviews.
- Each Nominating Committee member utilizes the scoring tool (Appendix D) to rank individual nominees. These rankings are used only as a touchpoint for comparing the long list of candidates and are not considered in isolation when selecting the slate.
- The Nominating Committee convenes to review the information about each nominee and develop a slate. This typically results in multiple iterations developed over several phone calls.
When selecting the slate, the Nominating Committee determines the suitability of each candidate for a Board position versus other volunteer leadership positions within the organization, while ensuring that the full Board (including continuing members and those placed on the slate) is diverse and representative of the NSGC membership. The diversity of the full Board is evaluated with respect to factors including, but not limited to, years of practice, area of specialization, practice setting, geographic region, and cultural, ethnic and gender identity.
NSGC Headquarters promotes the professional interests of genetic counselors and provides a network for professional communications. Access to continuing education opportunities, professional resources, advocacy and the discussion of all issues relevant to human genetics and the genetic counseling profession are an integral part of belonging to the NSGC.