DCP: Distinguished Club Program

Toastmasters International (TI) exists to assist others achieve their personal goals for learning to make better presentations and be more effective leaders. TI realizes that people need to be members of active healthy clubs in order to be able to meet their personal goals.

To that end, TI developed the DCP: Distinguished Club Program. The intent of the DCP is to ensure that members are achieving educational and leadership goals, paying their membership dues on time and electing their officers each year.

As you know, there is no way to flunk a speech in Toastmasters. You give it, you get credit for it, regardless of what you did or how you did. Your evaluator and other club members will give you feedback on the waht and how. The entire purpose is to learn from the experience.

As you give more speeches, the more you learn. The more you learn, the close you get towards achieving your goals.

The club itself also needs goals. That is where the DCP comes in. The DCP sets twelve milestones for the club members to meet. Meeting half of them means that the club is Distinguished. About 40% of all clubs world-wide become at least Distinguished. Meeting three-fourths of them means that the club is Select Distinguished. About 25% of the clubs world-wide achieve this level. Meeting nearly all of them means that the club is Presidents Distinguished. Around 15% of the clubs achieve this level.

What are the twelve club milestones as defined by the DCP?

First of all, to earn any Distinguished status, the club must be at charter strength with its membership. When a club is first formed, it requires at least 20 members. That means a club should continuously have at least 20 members. That is called "charter strength". The one exception within the DCP for being at charter strength is when a club starts the Toastmasters year (July 1 through June 30) with 14 or fewer members. To meet the membership minimum milestone, the club needs to have had a net gain of five members.

Second, the club as a whole needs to reach five milestones. Those milestones are:

1. add four new members -- one DCP point
2. add at least four more new members -- one DCP point
3. at least four of the seven officers attend both bi-annual club officer training (sponsored by the district each winter and summer) -- one DCP point
4. turn in on time (June 30 only for clubs that elect officers annually, December 31 for clubs that elect officers semi-annually) one list of newly-elected officers
5. turn in on time (April 15 and October 15) at least one of the two membership dues renewal payments

     Note that those last two are combined when considered for earning one DCP point.

Third, the club members as individuals need to reach six milestones, Those milestones are:

1. two members earn the CC award -- one DCP point
2. at least two more members earn the CC award -- one DCP point
3. one member earn one of the AC awards: ACB, ACS or ACG -- one DCP point
4. at least one more member earn one of the AC awards: ACB, ACS or ACG -- one DCP point
5. one member earn one of the leadership awards: CL, ALB, ALS or DTM -- one DCP point
6. at least one more member earn one of the leadership awards: CL, ALB, ALS or DTM -- one DCP point

That makes ten DCP points.

A club can earn any of them to go towards the DCP to achieve a level of distinguished status. Here are the levels of distinction:

Five DCP points = Distinguished Club status
Seven DCP points = Select Distinguished Club status
Nine DCP points = Presidents Distinguished Club status

For a worksheet to use for planning your club's DCP, go to here.

For more information on the DCP, go to the TI webpage at https://www.toastmasters.org/fupload/media/1111-DCP-07-08.pdf.