What Went Into DBA Changing Its Name to The Receivables Management Association

It was if DBA International looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize itself any more. It was time for a change.

So the association spent nearly two years working on a new name for the trade group, one that reflected its evolving membership base and presence in the financial services industry.

DBA announced at its annual conference earlier this month that it was changing its name to the Receivables Management Association. The move coincided with the 20th annual conference hosted by the group.

“Our name wasn’t reflective of who we are,” said Jan Stieger, the association’s executive director. “The 20th anniversary was the opportune time to change the name. We worked closely with our founding members and our past presidents. We wanted to be respectful of our past.”

The association also hired an outside firm to help develop the new name, Stieger said. The outside company interviewed regulators, association members, agencies, law firms, and other industry representatives, including consultants who help the association in Washington, D.C., and with state attorneys general.

“We tried to get input from people who are not intimately involved; we wanted an organic perspective,” Stieger said. “We decided a name change was the right thing to do.”

Once the decision was made the change the name, the real work began. Stieger said the association considered every possible grouping of words involving credit and collections, finally settling on the Receivables Management Association.

After the name was picked, the process of designing a new logo began, Stieger said, adding that the color blue was selected because it represents integrity, responsibility, reliability, and dependability. The group wanted to keep the globe in its logo to maintain continuity and reflect the global nature of its growing membership base.

Now that the name change has been approved by the association’s members, the behind the scenes work can begin, Stieger said. That includes all of the legal work that has to go into officially changing the name.

“It’s easy to get new letterhead,” Stieger said. “It’s not so easy to change your non-profit status with IRS.”

The official name change will be rolled out during the course of 2017, including a new website, Stieger said. But despite the name change, Stieger wanted to reinforce that while the name has changed, the mission of the association has not.

“We will continue to focus on advocacy and representing our members,” she said. “We are absolutely excited about this.”