AFP Update: Mike Geiger Talks with Amy Eisenstein

AFP President and CEO Mike Geiger, MBA, CPA discusses his vision for AFP and key goals the association is striving towards, including the Women's Impact Initiative and using technology to enhance our educational efforts.

Video Transcript

AE:       Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

MG:     I came into this role in early November, and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. I was born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark. I came to the US to go to college and then I went to grad school. For the past 21 years I’ve been in the nonprofit world. The first fifteen years, I worked for two large think tanks, the Carnegie Endowment and the German Marshall Fund. Then I moved to a membership-based organization called, Chief Executives Organization. And then I came into this position, which I’m so excited about.

AE:       Sounds like you have the experience. Why’d you take the job?

MG:     It was an opportunity for me to take my business skills and put them to use for an organization that does good around the world… I wanted to work for an organization that made a difference.

AE:       We all want to make a difference in this field, so you’re in the right place.

You’ve been here for a few months now. What’s your long-term vision for AFP?

MG:     I think that AFP needs to be the leading authority and the leading voice within the philanthropic sector. I think the potential there is so great.

The work that has been done prior to me coming to AFP has been fabulous and the leaders have been terrific, the staff is amazing, the members are so committed… but there’s so much more that this organization can do. This organization needs to be looked at as the leader within our sector, and I want to work with the team to take the organization to that place.

AE:       That’s great. What about some short-term vision – 2018 and 2019? What’s in the near future?

MG:     I came up with 5 goals that I really wanted to achieve in 2018. They are:

1. The Women’s Impact Initiative
2. Education
3. Foundation
4. Technology/Website
5. Getting closer to members and chapters

The Women’s Impact Initiative is something we just started through our IDEA Committee (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, Access). What we did through this committee is create this initiative focusing on women, and how to help women really move forward in their careers and not have obstacles put in front of them as they go through their careers.

AE:       Yes. It’s so important. A huge percentage of our sector is women, so I’m happy to hear that.

MG:     About 70% of AFP’s members are women. But only about a third of the senior level positions are held by women.

AE:       Yes, in this day and age, you would hope you wouldn’t still be having this conversation, but it’s very clear that we still have a lot of work to do, so I’m glad it’s one of your top priorities.

MG:     The second priority is our education. A lot of great work has been done, but there’s more to be done. We need to refresh it and come up with new topics to be current with what’s going on, and we need to change our distribution channels… one of the areas we really want to focus on is using technology to deliver education… we need to go and be where our members are.

Another of my goals is our foundation. We have three foundations – our US Foundation, Canada Foundation and Mexico Foundation. These foundations have the capacity to help AFP reach beyond what it’s doing now. They can help fund research and thought leadership.

Another goals for us is technology. We are working on redesigning and redeveloping our website. And we intend to launch that by the end of this calendar year, and that will give us tremendous capacity and opportunity to reach our members.

Our fifth goal is focused on our chapters and on our members. AFP has move away a little bit from how we interact, and from the services we provide. One of the key goals is for us to get closer and to be able to provide services to our chapters and members that we have not been providing over the last couple of years. This is critical for the organization as we move forward.

AE:       I understand AFP recently released a sexual harassment survey. Can you talk about that?

MG:     Yes, we did this with the Chronicle of Philanthropy. And as you said, we just launched it. And it really comes out of our Women’s Impact Initiative and was funded by our foundation. We think this is a critical piece that will help women as they move forward in their careers…

AE:       That’s great. Any final thoughts you want to share?

MG:     I’m really excited about working for AFP and with the members. And I really hope the members take the opportunity to reach out to me, which they can do by email, they can find my contact information on our website, they can call me, they can invite me to come visit their chapter. I’m really eager to come out and meet the members and hear feedback and learn from the members, so we can build this organization to what it really should be.

AE:       Terrific. Thanks so much!

For even more interviews, tools, and resources, I hope you’ll visit my website www.amyeisenstein.com