What It Means to Serve on an ONS Chapter Board | Megha Shah, DNP, FNP, OCN
When I became president of the Chicago Western Suburbs chapter of the Oncology Nursing Society, I was not entirely sure what I was saying yes to. I knew the role mattered. I knew the ONS was the professional home of oncology nursing in the United States and that its chapters were the part of the organization closest to frontline nurses in their own communities. What I did not fully appreciate until I was inside it was how much chapter leadership gives back to the nurse who shows up for it.
This article is for oncology nurses who are curious about ONS chapter involvement, what it actually requires, what you get from it, and how to get started if you are interested.
What an ONS Chapter Is
The Oncology Nursing Society is a national professional organization with more than 35,000 members. Its structure includes a national governing body and a network of local chapters across the country, each affiliated with ONS but operating with a degree of local autonomy.
Chapters are the grassroots level of the organization. They host educational events, connect nurses in a geographic region, support local networking and mentorship, and provide a community for oncology nurses who may be the only one in their specialty in their immediate workplace. The Chicago Western Suburbs chapter, which I serve as president, reflects the oncology nursing community in the western suburbs of Chicago, which includes a range of institutional sizes, practice settings, and specialties.
What Chapter Board Service Involves
Chapter boards typically include a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and a number of committee chairs and members-at-large. The specific structure varies by chapter, but the roles share common features.
The president’s role involves setting the strategic direction for the chapter year, presiding over board meetings, representing the chapter to the national ONS structure, and, in practical terms, being the person who makes sure things get done when committees need support or direction. It is a coordinating and communicating role as much as a leadership role in the formal sense.
Vice president and committee chairs manage specific functions of the chapter, educational programming, membership recruitment, community outreach, nominations, and finance. These roles are more bounded in scope than the president’s but are no less important to the chapter’s function.
Members-at-large and general board members participate in governance, contribute to events and programming, and support the work of the chapter without carrying the full administrative weight of an officer role. For nurses who are new to board service, a member-at-large or committee member position is an excellent entry point.
The time commitment for board service varies by role and by chapter activity level. For a committee member or member-at-large, participation might involve four to six hours per month in a moderately active chapter, attending a monthly board meeting, contributing to a planning committee, and participating in events. For an officer role, particularly the presidency, the commitment is more substantial during event-heavy periods.
What You Actually Gain
I want to be specific about what chapter board service has given me, because I think the professional development value is both real and underarticulated.
A broader perspective on the profession. When you are embedded in a single institution, it is easy to assume that how your unit does things is how oncology is practiced. Chapter involvement brings you into contact with nurses from different institutions, different practice settings, and different regions. The variation in how people approach the same clinical problems is genuinely instructive, and the conversations that happen informally before and after chapter events are often among the most educationally rich I have had.
Leadership experience that transfers. Running a chapter meeting, planning an educational event, managing a committee, and navigating the interpersonal dynamics of a volunteer-driven organization are all skills that transfer directly to nursing leadership in institutional settings. Nurses who serve on chapter boards develop facilitation skills, organizational skills, and the ability to motivate people who have no formal obligation to follow through, which is harder than managing people who report to you, and more applicable to most leadership situations you will actually encounter.
Visibility & Network within the specialty. Being known within the ONS community, through chapter involvement, through presenting at chapter events, through contributing to ONS publications, opens doors. It is how speakers get invited to regional and national conferences. It is how nurses connect with collaborators for quality improvement projects and research. It is how I was eventually invited to serve as an associate editor for the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing and how I came to speak on the ONS Podcast. None of those opportunities came from simply being good at my clinical job. They came from being present and visible in the professional community.
A community of peers. Oncology nursing can be isolating in ways that are specific to the specialty. The emotional weight of the work, the complexity of the patients, the frequency of loss, these are not experiences that a nurse can always process in a general nursing lounge. Chapter involvement connects you with people who understand the work from the inside and who are navigating the same challenges. That connection has value that is difficult to measure and easy to underestimate until you have it.
How to Get Involved
The most direct path to ONS chapter involvement is to attend a chapter event first. Most chapters host educational events that are open to ONS members and, in many cases, to non-members who are interested. Attending a chapter event gives you a sense of the community and an opportunity to meet board members informally before committing to anything.
From there, the next step is introducing yourself as someone who is interested in getting involved. Most chapter boards are actively looking for engaged members, and expressing interest genuinely is usually enough to open a conversation about what roles are available and what would be a good fit.
If you are not yet an ONS member, it is worth exploring membership. The national organization provides access to continuing education, the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing and the Oncology Nursing Forum, clinical practice guidelines, and the broader ONS network. The membership fee is an investment in your professional development, and it is the gateway to chapter involvement.
One thing I want to address directly: the imposter syndrome that stops many nurses from considering board service in the first place. You do not need to be an expert to serve on a chapter board. You do not need to have advanced credentials, a publication history, or a long career behind you. You need commitment to the specialty, willingness to show up, and the willingness to learn from the people around you. The nurses who serve best are often the ones who came in uncertain and grew into confidence through the work itself.
The ONS chapter structure exists because nursing leadership and professional community do not happen automatically. They happen because nurses choose to invest in them. That choice is available to you, and it is worth making.