Support Groups and Service Organizations
26th Annual Michigan Home Education Convention
Leadership Summit
submit a new profile - OR - edit your existing profile
Historically, the term “support group” has meant those groups that meet locally to provide fellowship and enrichment opportunities for home school parents and children. The term “support organization” connotes those organizations where specific services such as band, athletics, or tutoring classes are offered, usually for a fee. For our purposes here, we view both the same in that both are ministering in some way to the home school community. Thus we will tend to use the terms “groups” and “organizations” interchangeably, but will usually be referring to both.
Local support groups/organizations have always been and will continue to be an integral part of the home schooling experience. Part of the mission of INCH is to provide information, encouragement, leadership training opportunities, and ongoing support to groups/organizations that minister to home schoolers in Michigan. Part of that service is to provide a means for you to make your organization known to home schoolers in your area. Hence the reason for the creation of our support group search engine and its prominence on nearly every page of our web site.
Any Michigan based support group or service organization that specifically ministers to home schoolers is welcome to submit a Profile form to list your organization on our web site. The information you provide on the profile form helps home schoolers learn a little about your group, such as, where you meet, how you function, and the services you provide, so they can more accurately determine if your group will best meet their needs.
Once you submit your profile form and it is authenticated by INCH, we will post it (usually within a few days) to our web site. Authentication is necessary to ensure that only legitimate home school organizations, and not spammers, are attempting to post a profile. Upon authentication, you will receive a password that will enable you to update your profile any time changes need to be made to it. This process will keep the group leader’s personal information private and protect your organization’s profile information from being changed by unauthorized individuals.
Here are some additional FAQ’s that might help answer any remaining questions.
How is the information on the profile form used?
The contact information, i.e., Group Name, address, phone, email and web site are posted in our support group search engine. When someone enters their zip code the search feature will display support groups in their area listed in order of proximity to their zip code. Cool, huh?
The voting district information, which does not get posted, helps us (INCH) to quickly identify support groups in specific districts. That way we can inform support groups when an issue comes up in congress or the state legislature that needs home schoolers who live in those districts to contact their elected officials regarding the issue.
The information you provide in the freeform text boxes help people to understand the makeup of your group, the activities or services you provide, and whether or not there are limitations on membership.
The leader contact information, which does not get posted, enables us (INCH) to communicate directly with the group leader. Information that is sent out by INCH, such as informational packets or leader seminar invitations, is sent to the leader’s address, not the regular meeting site address.
Are there other benefits to submitting our profile information to INCH?
In addition to being listed in our support group search engine, these additional benefits are available to groups and organizations for which we have profile information on file.
1. Periodic mailings of informational packets to leaders to pass on to support group members. These packets often contain product and service offerings, political information, coming events and other information that is most efficiently passed on to support group leaders in mailing packets.
2. Invitation to attend the annual daylong support group leaders’ seminar held each year in conjunction with the annual Michigan Home Education Convention hosted by INCH.
3. Invitation to participate in the “leaders only” forum on the INCH web site, which allows leaders to communicate in a private forum on the problems and issues they face as they endeavor to lead others. To do this you must register on the forum and provide us your username on the profile form.
What are the requirements to be listed on the INCH web site?
1. We require that support groups be open to receiving new members. Closed groups that do not wish to have new members, or, for example, are only open to members of a certain church, would not fit with our purpose of helping home schoolers get connected with a support group in their area.
2. We ask that support groups/organizations support the ministry of INCH by:
a. Encouraging INCH membership.
b. Promoting and encouraging attendance to the annual INCH convention.
c. Provide a link to the INCH web site from your web site, should you have one.
d. Endeavor to not host or promote events that would occur on or close to the date of our annual INCH convention so that it would discourage attendance to our convention. *
* It is not our desire to limit the activities of any group. But please understand that the majority of the money needed to operate the ministry of INCH throughout the year is raised at our annual convention. Seminars, book fairs and other like events that occur too close together generally cause home schoolers to have to choose between one or the other, thus negatively impacting both events. If your group can schedule such events at least a couple months before or after the INCH convention, it will likely benefit both events.
Why do you request both Leader and Regular Meeting Site address information?
Information that is sent from INCH to support groups/organizations, such as informational packets or leader training invitations, is sent to the leader’s address. To help protect personal information, leader address information will not be posted to our web site. Regular Meeting Site information will be posted to our web site to assist home schoolers in locating a group near them. The support group search engine will use the zip code of the Regular Meeting Site to determine the distance between the person searching and your regular meeting location.
How do I change our profile information when changes occur?
Change happens! It is each support group’s/organization’s responsibility to keep your profile information as current as possible at all times. You can update your profile information any time something on your profile needs to be changed. Make sure you keep track of your password. You will need to enter it any time you wish to make changes to your profile information. If you should happen to lose or forget your password, contact the INCH office. We can issue you a new password allowing you to access your profile again.