Mike’s Monday Message: 2024 Recap: A Year of Impact

Wow, I can’t believe this is my last Mike’s Message of 2024! AFP has had another fantastic year, thanks to your continued support, and the support of our sponsors and partners, and of course our AFP staff. 

Here are just a few of the things that you helped AFP accomplish this year: 

In April, we successfully hosted the world’s number one fundraising conference, AFP ICON, in Toronto, featuring keynotes Nikole Hannah-Jones and Phyllis Webstad. It was inspiring to witness fundraisers unite around a shared purpose, fostering collaboration and proving that our profession is exponentially more “impactful together”. AFP is looking forward to seeing you again for AFP ICON 2025 in Seattle, April 27-29 for more exceptional education. 

Another of our priorities this year was providing fundraisers with the training they need to move into leadership positions within their nonprofits. Since 2018, AFP has been addressing this skills gap through conferences such as AFP LEAD, which was hosted this year in St. Louis. In the last few years, however, we have gone beyond this event, with the development of a comprehensive three-tiered program to provide training at the individual, organizational, and sector level. As part of this unified approach, AFP launched the Leadership Institute, a week-long in-person learning experience. Over the last year and a half, we have held four cohorts of this program, with a total of 90 participants. The results have been impressive, with attendees describing it as a life-changing experience that has already resulted in numerous career growth opportunities. Last month, key stakeholders met in Savannah, GA to discuss how AFP can expand the Leadership Institute to bring a similar experience to a broader audience for a more expansive impact on our sector. We’re looking forward to seeing where these efforts go in 2025 and beyond! 

In the meantime, throughout 2024, our professional development team was busy coordinating top-tier virtual education offerings. We offered 26 AFP Deep Dives, and 40 webinars, 26 of which were complimentary for AFP members. These webinars are a great opportunity for you to earn CFRE credit and stay up to date on the latest trends in fundraising. If 2024 went as fast for you as it did for me, and you weren’t able to catch all of them, they are still available on-demand for you to check out in 2025. Watch our Online Learning Review to learn more about the education that was popular this year. 

Beyond our educational offerings, AFP has also been busy this year advocating on behalf of the sector. Our priority this year was passage of the Charitable Act, which would restore and expand the deduction for charitable giving for Americans who do not itemize their taxes. Passage of this legislation would provide small donors with a much-needed incentive to give, which would help bolster the declines we have been seeing in donations from this group in the last few quarters of reports from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP), a partnership between the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday. The 2024 Q3 report was just released last Thursday, once again showing a troubling over-reliance on major donors for our total dollar growth. 

In 2025, the foundation will continue to support sector research on emerging trends, specifically the development of donor-advised fund education, which was made possible by a grant we received this year from the Fidelity Charitable Catalyst Fund. Don’t forget to make your gift to the foundation this year-end so we can continue to fund this work, as well as scholarships for AFP members from diverse backgrounds to attend events such as AFP ICON and AFP LEAD in 2025. 

Finally, in 2025, changes to the AFP Code of Ethical Standards and our new Member Code of Conduct will go into effect. These important policies that our volunteer committees have been working on for the past few years are designed to make the AFP member experience, and the practices of our profession, more ethical and equitable, for the betterment of our entire sector. 

On a personal note, I had intended 2024 to be my last year with AFP. In May, I announced my retirement, after seven years with the association. AFP Global Board Chair, Birgit Smith Burton, then appointed the 2024 President & CEO Search Committee, chaired by Joyce Mitchell-Antoine, and we selected the executive search firm DRiWaterstone, to help us identify AFP’s next president. This process is well underway, but it will not be completed by year-end, therefore, I have agreed to stay on through this transition, until they select a qualified candidate to lead AFP into the next phase of our journey. So, I look forward to continuing to serve and work alongside you for the first few months of 2025. 

To wrap up the year, I want to thank our entire fundraising community, particularly our AFP members, for your continued support. I also want to recognize all the incredible work each of you have done for your own organizations. Fundraising truly is the impact profession! These last two weeks, don’t forget that you’re not alone and AFP has got your back with resources to support your end of year fundraising.

Have a wonderful holiday season and as always, please feel free to email me at mike.geiger@afpglobal.org or connect with me directly on X at @AFPMikeGeiger. I’d love to hear from you.