Association of Fundraising Professionals

As you take time to reflect during this holiday season, it is a perfect time to create or update your plan for self-improvement next year. Opportunities for professional development are expanding exponentially online and in person.

As executive director of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, Scott Staub raises money to give to the city's libraries. In his spare time, he raises money to give to politicians. Staub heads a political action committee — Association of Fundraising Professionals Political Action Committee — trying to increase the political clout of the nonprofit sector in federal elections. Most of the committee's members are affiliated with charitable organizations.

As you reach out to renew those friendships with loyal donors to your cause with year-end appeals, the first question you should ask yourself is how these investors to your organization came to be the loyal, dependable friends that they are? You’ll discover that sustaining and expanding the flow of year-end investments is much more about what you did last year than anything you will do in the next few weeks.

Here is a video message from AFP President and CEO Andrew Watt on Canada becoming the first country to permanently recognize National Philanthropy Day.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals operates what it believes is the only political-action committee that makes campaign contributions to federal candidates based exclusively on whether they support — or are in a position to sway — government action to benefit philanthropy.

This election cycle, the PAC contributed $24,000 to 10 members of Congress who are (or were) up for re-election, six in the House and four in the Senate.

Check out recent posts from re: charity and Rewarding-Fundraising-Ideas.com.

Scott Pearl, the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ (AFP) new chief marketing officer, has been named to Social Media Marketing Magazine’s list of the top 100 CMOs on Twitter around the world. The list identifies the top 100 chief marketing officers who provide useful content; engage with followers; and “get it,” according to Social Media Marketing, when it comes to the best ways to use Twitter. It was Pearl’s first appearance on the list, and he is currently ranked 80th.

Leaders of big nationwide nonprofits sent letters to President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on Thursday urging the presidential candidates to reconsider their proposals to cut the charitable tax deduction. (See the letter to Obama and the one to Romney.)

The leaders also announced that they have scheduled a gathering Dec. 4-5 to bring hundreds of members to Washington, D.C., to tell members of Congress that any tax changes that led to decline in private giving would devastate nonprofits and the people they serve.

Just how hard it is for fundraisers to keep raising as much this year as they did last year can be found in an analysis of 2011 fundraising returns.

For every $100 charities raised in 2011, $100 was lost as donors stopped giving or donated less, concludes a new report by the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Urban Institute. What’s more, for every 100 donors that nonprofits recruited in 2011, they lost 107.

Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Chancellor and Executive Vice President Charles R. Bantz have announced the appointment of Gene Tempel to be the founding dean of IU's new School of Philanthropy, subject to the approval of the IU Board of Trustees at its next business meeting Oct. 12.