Colorado Environmental Health Association
61st Annual Education Conference and Exhibition (CEHA AEC)
September 20 – September 23 2016
Breckenridge, Colorado
~ Together We Are Strong~
Justification Toolkit
General Tips
Many travel and training budgets have been slashed, and some organizations are
experiencing severe financial problems. Thus, regardless of the merits of a conference,
you’ll probably need to justify the expense. Here are some things you might want to
consider:
 Focus on what you will specifically bring back to the organization as return for the
investment.
 Offer to prepare and deliver a short presentation and Q&A to your colleagues to
share what you learned. That way others in your unit will benefit from your
attendance, as well.
 Share the program with your colleagues. As an attendee, you will have access to
conference presentations after the conference concludes.
 Remind your supervisor that this is a great way to complete NEHA Credentialing
Exams.
 Be ready with a plan that shows who will cover for you while you are attending
the conference.
 Register no later than August 20, 2016 to receive lowest registration rates.
Expenses Worksheet
Conference expenses are affected by a number of factors. Before you can even begin
to justify your expenses, you need to calculate what those expenses are. Use the
worksheet below to develop a cost estimate for attending the 2016 CEHA AEC. Refer to
the registration and hotel information online for details
(http://www.cehaweb.com/aec.html).
Expense
Guideline
Cost
Conference Registration
Register no later than August 20, 2016
to receive lowest registration rates
$
Tuesday Session
Optional
$
Ticketed Events
Optional
$
Credentialing
Optional
$
Flight
Try an online travel service to get a
quick estimate
$
Lodging
Refer to online information
(http://cehaweb.com/aec/2016aec/aec-hotel-info/)
$
Transportation: Airport to
Hotel
Taxi, subway, rental car, etc.
$
Transportation: Hotel to
Airport
Taxi, subway, rental car, etc.
$
Mileage Reimbursement
Driving to conference or to the airport
for your flight? Can you carpool?
$
Use an online mapping tool to
calculate distances, then multiply miles
by 54 cents/mile. (IRS standard
effective January 1, 2016)
Parking Reimbursement
Airport parking for flight departure
$
Food Per Diem
Check on your organization’s policies
$
Total $
Understanding the Benefits
Many benefits of attending the 2016 CEHA AEC can be hard to quantify. For example,
experts agree that the top benefit of conference attendance is networking value. Where
else can you find so many public and environmental health professionals facing the
same issues as your organization? Are there solutions of which you’re not aware?
Although networking is undoubtedly the most important benefit of attending a
conference, it is also the toughest to quantify.
When you propose the 2016 CEHA AEC for approval, don’t focus on how much you
want to go; focus specifically on the knowledge and experience you will bring back for
your organization.
Some specific details you’ll need to identify:
 Session content. What sessions have particular relevance to your organization’s
work?
 Vendor contacts. Will the 2016 CEHA AEC showcase exhibitors with tools you
use or are evaluating for future use? Is this an opportunity to compare competing
tools?
 Best practices. Will there be education sessions in areas that will immediately
benefit your group?
 Training. Will there be education sessions designed to teach attendees a special
skill or help your team overcome current or future challenges?
Benefits Worksheet
Although you might understand the benefits of attending the 2016 CEHA AEC, your
manager may not. To be most effective in justifying the conference, you need to clearly
articulate the connection between your organization’s knowledge requirements and the
conference program. DO NOT assume your manager will be able to automatically make
those distinctions.
To support this process, use the worksheet below to help you focus on the benefits. Use
whatever makes sense for your particular situation and organization and omit the rest.
Your Organization’s
Benefits
Specific Needs and the Conference Sessions
That Meet the Need
What
savings
might be
realized?
Networking Benefits
The 2016 CEHA AEC will allow [specific team
members] to network with other professionals &
vendors in the profession. We will be able to
take the pulse of what is happening for tools,
technologies, & processes and hear ideas of
which we weren’t even aware.
$
Team Building (if
sending a big part of
your group)
This conference will help build our team,
providing a forum for team members to discuss
tools, technologies, & processes & how we
might apply them to improve our organization.
$
Current Tools
$
Future Tools
Exploration
$
Current Technologies
$
Future Technologies
Exploration
$
Current Processes
$
Future Processes
Exploration
$
Vendors With Tools &
Technologies You Are
Exploring
$
How to Sell Your Attendance
After you have identified the specific knowledge benefits, provide both the expenses
and benefits your manager needs to decide the value of your proposition.
Salespeople work the same way. They don’t let customers infer the value of what they
are selling, they make that leap for them.
Sell your conference proposition!
Letter to Manager
< Date >
Dear < supervisor’s name >,
I would like to attend Colorado Environmental Health Association’s Annual Education Conference and
Exhibition (CEHA AEC), September 20 - 23, 2016. The conference will enable me to attend a number of
education sessions that are directly applicable to my work and will allow me to network with a variety of
public and environmental health professionals from around the state and region. Many of the
presentations are tailored to the < your specific profession > public and environmental health professional
and give information on how to < list benefits to your responsibilities >. I am seeking sponsorship for the
registration fee, travel expenses to the conference, and living expenses during the conference. A detailed
cost breakdown is included below.
After reviewing the 2016 CEHA AEC brochure, I have identified a number of education sessions that will
allow me to gain knowledge and understanding about how we can improve our processes. The
presentations are all facilitated by experts in the profession who have faced similar challenges. I chose
each of these presentations because it is directly related to an issue we are dealing with currently. Getting
the information in a presentation format will greatly reduce the research time and costs that < your
organization’s name > would normally incur in researching the topics. Incidentally, I have only listed some
of the education sessions that I will attend. Including them all would make this memo much too long.
< You will need to insert the session titles and descriptions which most apply to your responsibilities. >
The CEHA member full-conference fee is $255, if registered no later than August 20, 2016.
Here is the breakdown of conference costs:
Roundtrip Airfare:
<$xxxx>
Transportation:
<$xxxx>
Hotel:
<$xxxx>
Meals:
<$xxxx>
Conference Fee:
<$xxxx>
The total costs associated with attending this conference are
<$xxxx>.
The opportunity for me to develop better contacts and gain knowledge in specific areas of the public and
environmental health profession makes my attendance at the 2016 CEHA AEC a wise investment, which
will yield rich dividends for < name of your organization >.
Sincerely,
< Your name here >