At nearly 15 years since the National Barn and Storage Rental Association was formed to serve the shed rental industry, we as a board are delighted to announce a significant refresh for the association.
As with many other industries, the rent -to-own space isregulated and compliance has implications for all industry folks. NBSRA’s mission has always been to serve companies in this industry, helping them to operate in compliance with regulations and ensure the health of the entire industry.
For many shed customers, the option of renting to own has made acquiring a shed for backyard storage affordable.
This organizational remodel includes a rebrand. We are now officially the National Shed Rental Association, and our new website can be found at www.nsra.info.
In January, the board of directors met for two days to lay out a 10-year strategic plan for the association along with updated branding, core values, and code of ethics.
We have also updated our bylaws and made the changes needed to comply with them as a board. This article will briefly introduce you to the revisions, but I encourage you to check out the website as well.
I personally commend the vision and work done by previous boards, not only in the birth of the association but in carrying on its important mission over the past years.
We’ve seen some really lean and challenging times, and it has taken dedicated members and staff to carry us through those slumps.
I also recognize the current board of directors, along with various staff members and volunteers, as having done some truly outstanding work. They continue to invest in the future of the association to ensure its continued success.
We have restated our mission as follows: Our mission is to provide valuable member benefits, promote peer collaboration, and nurture a conducive business environment for the shed rent-to-own industry.
Each of the three components of this mission is important to ensure the continued health of the industry and protect the opportunity to provide this service in the coming years.
We are also committed to creating valuable resources for the industry, particularly through our annual conference but also by creating educational content. We want our members to be successful and energized in the work they do and the services they provide.
We envision the association being a means to promote and facilitate collaboration between companies in the industry.
We encourage our members to embrace an abundance mindset that values collaboration as fuel for continued industry growth and takes the edge off unhealthy forms of competition.
As an industry, we have benefited greatly from the work done in the past by our friends and associates at APRO (Association of Progressive Rental Organizations). They have worked hard to ensure a legislative environment at both the state and federal level that allows us to serve clients with this service.
We are working to maintain this relationship and support their continued work. It is in partnership with them that we will continue the work of maintaining and improving the business environment for the shed rent-to-own industry.
We run the risk of sabotaging these efforts, however, unless we pay careful attention to both the core values of the association and the ethical standards by which we serve our clients.
We have defined the core values of the association— the standard by which we will hold ourselves as a board and our staff accountable—as the following four: trusted integrity, servant leadership, forward thinking, and inclusivity.
As we worked through identifying these values, we considered both the challenges we face as an association and those values that will be essential to the health of the association. Looking at each one:
- Trusted integrity. As representatives of the industry, it is important that the board of directors model the highest levels of integrity. People need to be able to trust us. We are committed to serving the interests of the industry as a whole and need to model leadership that does not use its position and power for selfish purposes.
- Servant leadership. We are committed to using the offices we hold in the association, and the influences these offices represent, to serve people in the industry. Serving does not always mean doing what others wish we would do but entails always using our best collective judgment to do the right thing for the industry as a whole.
- Forward thinking. We live in a time of rapid change. Associations like ours, if even slightly neglected, can quickly become irrelevant and comfortable clubs for the select few who hold office. Office-holders must use our positions and this association to intentionally consider what may lie beyond our present circumstances and start doing now what we believe will be best for the future. While no one can see into the future, we resolve to do our best to be thoughtful and strategic. We believe forethought and deliberate, intentional preparation will position the industry for future success, not merely what is convenient in the moment.
- Inclusivity. While this term has been co-opted politically, we use the term inclusive to mean a commitment to valuing the participation and seeking the involvement of the entire spectrum of companies in the industry. This includes large and small businesses and local family businesses as well as companies that work nationwide. We do not want this association to be comprised of any one particular segment of the industry but rather to be truly inclusive of the broad range of companies in this space. If you are in the shed rental business, this association is for you.
Our core values will be particularly helpful in assessing the “fit” of people who will serve on the board of directors and the staff we hire for the association.
However, we also care deeply about how our member companies do business, especially since one bad event can threaten the wellbeing of the whole industry.
To this end, we have adopted a code of ethics that we expect our members to use as a minimum guide for dealing with our valued partners, vendors, and customers. This code of ethics will provide a way of assessing a company’s suitability to be a member of the association, and we encourage its use in training all employees of the companies involved in the rent -to-own side of business.
Whether you are in sales, service, or delivery, we offer this as a model for ethical conduct that helps the people we serve to have a great experience.
CODE OF ETHICS
NSRA members pledge to the following:
- Abide by the association’s bylaws.
- Maintain a commitment to consumer protection and legal compliance, including the implementation of controls designed to ensure compliance.
- Develop and encourage the practice of the highest personal and professional conduct among themselves and their employees.
- Continue to seek ways to deliver the value, affordability, flexibility, and other consumer benefits of RTO transactions and related products and services to consumers; and to do so in a fair and transparent manner.
- Provide high-quality goods and services to their customers.
- Not discriminate against any customers or potential customers based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy status, age, or any other impermissible basis.
- Members shall recruit employees of other members only during an employee’s personal time and never on or about the premises of other members. If successful, they shall insist that the employee(s) return all confidential and proprietary information, including customer lists, to the former employer without using such information.
- Promote the positive public image of the RTO industry with consumers, policy makers, and other members of the public, by operating in accordance with this Code of Ethics.