Thank You!

Hi, everyone. I hope you are having a wonderful month and a successful year-end to your 2019 fundraising. I know it is a busy time, raising money and thanking donors before the calendar turns the page to 2020, but I want to take a moment to THANK YOU.

You do incredible work, bringing people together to change the world. Fundraising is the IMPACT profession because that’s what we create: impact. For the people we serve. For our communities. For our world.

And I’m so proud and grateful that you’ve chosen AFP to be your partner and your community. Just as you bring donors and supporters together, AFP brings fundraisers together, in a community, to advance ethical fundraising and help create change and impact.

I look back on 2019 with so much excitement at everything we did together – for example:

• We celebrated ethics and everything it makes possible with our inaugural Ethics Awareness Month in October.
• We launched AFP Lead, our new leadership conference, and continued to increase our research and education efforts on important issues such as leadership and management, toxic workplaces, cultures of philanthropy and much more.
• We expanded the reach of our Women’s Impact Initiative, developing new research on the gender pay gap and holding the first Women’s Impact Summit.
• We offered you new services like AFP360° powered by Korn Ferry, negotiation workshops through the American Association of American Women, and free webinars, Micro-Learning videos and other resources.
• We brought the profession closer together through AFP ICON, where 3,500 of you converged in San Antonio to hear from cutting-edge presenters, and through AFP Connect, our popular online forums.
• We pushed for the universal charitable deduction, helped repeal the tax on transportation and parking benefits provided by charities, and recommended reforms and new measures to increase giving to the Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector in Canada.
• And that’s not even mentioning all of the programs and benefits you receive from your local chapter.

United, as one AFP community, we can point to victories and accomplishments that have actually moved the needle on education, on increasing giving, on fighting for equity, and advancing ethical fundraising.

So during this busy conclusion to the season of giving, I hope you’ll take a moment to pause and reflect on everything you’ve helped accomplish this year for your cause, for your profession and the world. YOU are making a difference, and it does NOT go unnoticed.

Have a happy holiday and joyous New Year, and we’ll see you in the new decade – the Decade of Fundraising Leadership when we will offer you more new programs and services to help you change the world!

Thank you being part of the AFP community and fundraising…the IMPACT profession.