HOA Business Cards

Hello,

I'm the President of our Homeowners Association. I work extensively with vendors, city and county officials, and others in my duties as President.

I'm wondering if it would be appropriate and valid for me to have business cards printed up that I could exchange with others? On one hand, e-mail has replaced business cards to a large extent. I'm thinking that I probably don't need business cards. Wanted to check here and see what others thought.

Cost is minimal, maybe $40 for a decent size set. I'd do the design of course so wouldn't need to hire a designer for the cards.

Curious what others think.

Not necessary in my opinion. If this was something you were doing full time and being paid for it there may be a case for it. It's true you may work with a lot of vendors,but that won't last forever - you may get voted out or decide to resign.

Yes for once I agree with Max. This is NOT a HOA expense. This is YOUR expense. You are doing this for your convenience.

You are in a VOLUNTEER position. The other board members would need to vote and agree this is an approved expense. Remember the HOA budget is NOT your money. It is EVERY member's money. You have been voted in to handle the every day running of that budget. Would you agree with some of these expenses on your dime?

It is not the cost it's the principle of the thing. It is still an expense that needs to be run across the rest of the board. You can't just decide what is or is not a worthy business expense on your own. I did not make our HOA pay for my business cards. I made them myself. Even if I buy something for the HOA's use, it has to be approved.

I never had business cards as a board member, but we employ a full-service PM who handles the work where such a thing may be needed. That may be the deciding factor. Or maybe if you're on the board of a large, well-known HOA and/or you spend time lobbying or promoting HOAs in general, physical cards may make sense - but I suspect that's not most of us.

The large majority of our vendors use smart phones since they're often in the field, which suggests some form of online business contact. If you do want to go the physical card route, the web hosting company that we used for our website also offers a bunch of design tools since they cater to the small business segment of the market.

I agree with others that this is a reasonable HOA expense (if approved by the board). It's also a trivial expense if you use the various design tools available to you, and I never bothered to get reimbursed for the little stuff - at some point my time was worth more than the few bucks I was chasing.

Buy cardstock at Office Depot and print them yourself. You aren't going to be president of this HOA forever, and you likely won't use all of them during your time on the board.

For a business, absolutely. If you get one customer with a business card you more than pay for the whole box. For an HOA I think it is a waste of money. Vendors will have a system for keeping your information and will not be accustomed to getting business cards from customers anyway.

My guess is that most people will enter your information in their phone and throw away your card.