AFP Member Spotlight: João Paulo Vergueiro

AFP Member Spotlights are a recurring series of interviews with AFP members, highlighting the unique individuals and career paths that exist within the fundraising profession. If you know an inspiring fundraising professional who deserves to be featured, please email [email protected].

In this member spotlight, we interviewed João Paulo Vergueiro, Latin American + Caribbean Hub Director at GivingTuesday. He shared with us the importance of professional associations like AFP and the Brazilian Fundraisers Association in advancing the field worldwide, and how generosity — expressed differently across cultures — continues to inspire his approach to building sustainable, innovative fundraising models.

Q: How did you start your career in the fundraising profession and what led you there?
A: My career in fundraising began in 2009, when I was hired by the British organization Christian Aid as their local funding officer in Brazil, applying for international grants on behalf of our local partners. I learned about the position and applied even though I had never worked in the profession, but I had worked with international donors before as a grant manager and being able to speak English helped too.

Q: When and why did you decide to become an AFP member?
A: As a member of the Brazilian Fundraisers Association (ABCR), I have been following AFP for many years, have attended AFP ICON a few times, and have been a speaker at three opportunities. Then I realized that I wanted to become an AFP member as well (I pay membership for both AFP and ABCR) because I believe that having a strong membership organization supporting the advancement of the profession is crucial, and AFP's influence goes beyond North America, inspiring the whole world.

Q: Are you doing anything innovative at your organization (or a past organization) that you think other fundraisers could benefit from?
A: It's not easy to talk about innovation when almost everything has been tested and retested. But I like to remember that when I was the CEO of the Brazilian Fundraisers Association, and we couldn't sustain ourselves on membership fees alone, we invested in a national fundraising conference to generate more income. I've always been very fond of the strategy of diversifying through events, and there are many opportunities to be creative and raise funds there. People like to meet in person!

Q: What is your favorite word? (only one word) How has this word influenced or inspired your career?
A: Generosity. In countries like Brazil, there's no cultural habit of giving money to charities. Nonetheless, the people are very generous; they donate a lot to their communities, in the streets, to the churches, etc. I try to remember that despite all the hardships of fundraising, the issue is not that people do not want to do good; it's just that they express it in many other ways, and we can inspire them to fund our causes with their money too.

Q: What professional accomplishment are you most proud of?
A: When I was hired as the CEO of ABCR, we had a limited income stream, and at the first event I led, we took a huge loss, so I had to lend the organization money. When I left, eight years later, we had grown our budget 10 times, started to build up a reserve fund and had brought in many new funders through advocacy initiatives. I left a vibrant and well-funded organization to my successor, having done all that whilst also advancing the fundraising profession in Brazil.

Q: How has being an AFP member and participating in the AFP affinity groups benefited you in your career?
A: I joined the Latinx Affinity Group because I wanted to get closer to the community of AFP members who come from or have a background in Latin America. I also wanted to know how the affinity groups functioned, because I had never joined one.

Q: In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing the nonprofit fundraising profession today?
A: There are two answers to this question. In places like the USA and Europe, where the profession is widely known and recognized, the challenge I see is that cultural habits have been changing rapidly, and the new generations do not have the same commitment to donating money to support the causes they believe in as previous generations did. They tend to rely more on social media and act, as we call them in Brazil, as armchair activists.

In the rest of the world, however, fundraising is not even considered a profession. It's not understood or respected. In these countries, the challenge is to develop the profession in a context where civil society space is under threat, and the spaces for growth and giving are shrinking in most of them.

Q: What advice do you have for other fundraising professionals?
A: Have a global mindset. Learn not only what's happening in your community, but also try to understand civil society and generosity in other parts of the world too. That will help you gain a broader perspective on your profession and the good you bring to your community and those you serve.