Have a question? We are happy to answer!

GCA has a Board of Directors and an Advisory Board that is made up of volunteers throughout the industry. We also have various committees that have chairs and members who are all volunteering their time with the Association. You can meet our volunteer leaders here.

GCA does have office staff who work for an Association Management Company that manages GCA. You can meet our office staff here.

The Greeting Card Association (GCA) helps you by offering a wide range of resources, support, and industry connections. As a member, you gain access to valuable networking opportunities, education opportunities, and tools that can help you grow your business. The GCA advocates for the greeting card industry, providing a collective voice on important issues, and hosts events like trade shows and conferences to keep you connected with industry trends.

Whether you’re a designer, manufacturer, or retailer, the GCA supports your success by promoting best practices, offering educational content, and fostering collaboration within the greeting card community.

As with any Association, you get out of it what you put into it. We encourage you to attend events, network, and get involved! Read more about our benefits here. 

As long as you’re a GCA member, you can join at anytime! In an industry where we help people connect, GCA is dedicated to building a community for our members and our industry as a whole. 

Here are just a few reasons why you should say YES to a volunteer assignment.

• It’s the perfect way to connect with other publishers, designers, artists and service providers who care deeply about the success of our industry.
• You can express your ideas, use your skills and abilities, and enjoy the company of others who appreciate your ideas.
• It’s an opportunity to be part of something that benefits your company, the greeting card business, and your career!
• Move up the ladder and be considered for leadership in the GCA.

Read more about volunteering here.

The GCA Community, hosted on Mighty Networks, is an online community platform for GCA members only. It’s a hub of connection where members can chat, share resources, and answer questions. It’s like a Facebook Group, but better!

No matter what part of the community you represent, maker, sales, retailer or supplier, the GCA Community is a place for you to connect, discover new opportunities, learn and generally promote and celebrate the greeting card industry.

Both events are one hour, informal Zoom meetings that are open to all GCA members to attend.

Town Hall is held bi-weekly on Wednesdays at 11am MT/1pm ET and is hosted by Carlos Llanso, our Executive Director. These meetings are a way to connect with members all across the country –  members are encouraged to share how they are doing and ways we can support each other as well as how GCA can assist. There is no agenda; this is an informal catch-up to answer questions, share some laughs, and lend a helping hand.

Coffee Chat is held on the last Friday of the month at 11am MT/1pm ET and is hosted by Kate Murray of Quick Brown Fox Letterpress. These meetings are curated sessions with occasional industry professional visitors as opposed to the Town Hall meetings which are more informal, free form meetings that cover a myriad of topics each week. Ideas for monthly topics are welcome and will be pulled from The GCA Community, hosted on Mighty Networks. 

The sessions are also recorded and can be viewed by members on the GCA Resource Center.

The Resource Center is GCA’s Learning Management System. This houses recordings from Town Halls, Coffee Chats, webinars, and more. You’ll sometimes find other educational content from members as well!

All recordings are free for GCA members to watch and most have a small fee for non-members to watch.

The annual Louie Awards program has been honoring the best cards in the industry for over 35 years. Brought to you by the Greeting Card Association, the Louie Awards recognize, reward, and celebrate that moment when art, editorial, and design perfectly coalesce to bring these emotions to life and memorialize the numerous milestones in our lives.

The Louies recognize the most outstanding greeting cards, invitations, and announcements marketed in the U.S. during the previous calendar year. The competition is open to all domestic and foreign publishers of greeting cards, invitations, and/or announcements, and attracts hundreds of entries annually. You do not have to be a GCA member to submit, though it is cheaper.

The general timeline is:

• September – early January: Call for Entries
• Late January – February: Judging
• Late February: Finalist Announcements
• Summer: Winners Announced + Louie Award Celebration

You can view additional FAQs for the Louie Awards and their answers here.

*Noted: the Greeting Card Expo is a greeting card industry event, created by the community, for the community. Since launched by the Greeting Card Association in 2019, *Noted has been the largest gathering of greeting card makers in North America. At it’s heart, *Noted is a tradeshow, but the goal is to gather all parts of the greeting card community, provide new connections, discover products and resources, and celebrate the diversity of greeting cards and the people behind them.

*Noted has had a few iterations over the years and you can read about its history here. GCA members exhibit at *Noted and we often host additional events including Pitch Programs and social events in conjunction as well.

Previously known as the Annual Convention and then the Workshop + Retreat, this is our educational conference where card publishers, industry suppliers, retail partners, and more meet for 2-3 days filled with networking, education, events, and fun. Attendees leave with great new contacts, ideas for innovation, leadership, and executive-level insight, tools to grow your business, insight into industry trends, and a renewed excitement for all things stationery.

Typically, this event is in-person and held in the September/October timeframe.

You do not have to be a GCA member to attend, though it is cheaper!

You’re in luck! GCA has a dedicated member type to suppliers of our industry. Our Associate members are suppliers of paper, printing, envelopes, equipment, raw materials, and other business products, services, or consulting.

We offer a GCA Associate Member Directory that is a searchable database of all GCA members who have opted in to being included in the directory that fit this criteria. Search for current members by business name, city, state, product/services offered, or company description. Search the directory here.

To help spread the word about *Noted, and to assist members who might be new to tradeshows, GCA partners with various industry tradeshows and events to offer GCA members an exclusive opportunity to exhibit in a mico-booth space with fellow GCA members, called a *Noted Village. The size and cost of these spaces vary by show, but they allow for GCA members to work together and network in a dedicated section on the show floor and is great for those new to exhibiting.

We typically have Villages at the Atlanta and NY NOW shows in the summer and winter. These are only open to GCA members.

Read more about any upcoming villages on our event calendar here. If you don’t see any listed, it means we don’t have any confirmed quite yet!

Unfortunately, as the trade association to the greeting card industry, we don’t publish greeting cards, nor do we keep track of which of our members are accepting submissions. However, we recommend going to our Member Directory here and reaching out to members directly who you think would be a good fit for you. Good luck!

Unfortunately, we don’t have a physical office and therefore can’t take in any greeting cards. We recommend reaching out to local museums to see if they are interested!