about : president's letter

by Randy Fox
December 12, 2005

On December 4th the board of AIP held its first annual board retreat in wintry Chicago. The meeting spanned two very intense days. The retreat was facilitated by our colleague, Renata Rafferty. In attendance were Rob O'Dell, Clare Price, Les Winston, Sally Alspaugh, Jerry Nuerge, Steve Mourning, Johnne Syverson, Bob Thompson and Randy Fox as well as Seth and Debbie Tinkler. The purpose of the meeting was to chart a clear course for the immediate future of AIP. This would involve several different initiatives:

First, to clearly delineate and define the target member of AIP;
Second, to establish standing committees and to clearly define their specific missions;
Third, to develop a series of one month, three month, six month and one year strategic initiatives that would be undertaken by the board and its committees.

These issues were deemed to be the most relevant and vital to further the growth of AIP. We participated in many exercises and brain storming sessions that Renata facilitated brilliantly. While it may be interesting to understand how we came to the conclusions that we did, it's probably most important to learn the results. Following is a brief summary of the three main accomplishments of the meeting.

Defining Target Market

First to the issue of membership we defined our ideal member as one of the following professionals: Financial Planners, Insurance Professionals, Attorneys, Accountants and Trust Officers. We further concluded that our target member does not include: Foundation Officers, Fund Raisers, Planned Giving Officers or Charity Executives. Charitable consultants like, Renata, fit somewhere in the middle of these two sets of professionals and will be welcomed but not necessarily marketed to. It is important to understand that this does not mean we will only accept membership from the first group nor does it mean that we will not accept membership from the latter group. What it does mean is that we will focus our recruitment efforts, our member benefits and our programming on the primary group of professionals. We will still welcome as members any and all non-profit professionals and hope to be the "bridge" between that group and the financial professionals as it pertains to philanthropic planning. We will simply not be focusing our marketing, membership recruitment and programming efforts toward the non-profit professionals.

Standing Committees

The next major effort was directed at developing the appropriate standing committees, defining their specific mission and naming or appointing chairpersons for each committee. The standing committees each have a chair from the board and at least one other board member in service to that committee. They are as follows:
Governance: Steve Mourning, chair with Bob Thompson
Finance: Steve Mourning, chair with Scott Rassler, Bob Thompson and Les Winston
Membership: Rob O'Dell, chair with Clare Price
Marketing: Johnne Syverson, chair with Jerry Nuerge
Conference: Jerry Nuerge, chair with Rob O'Dell
Revenue: Les Winston, chair with Scott Rassler

Strategic Initiatives

Finally, we developed strategic initiatives to be undertaken and completed during 2006 by the various committees that were established. Each of these were created from long lists of ideas that were pared down to what the board felt would have the most immediate favorable result for AIP. Those issues that were set aside will be reviewed at a later date and we will then determine if they are still relevant. If they are, we will assign them to the appropriate committee to carry them out.

There was only one month initiative to be pursued which is the preparation of a comprehensive financial statement to be delivered by the finance committee in time for the January board meeting. This follows the conclusion of a complete audit of the books and records of AIP.

The three month items are: to find, evaluate and engage a marketing and public relations representative; to create a ten word description of our "mission" which includes no jargon; to create a methodology to measure the influence of our memberships' influence in philanthropy (how much money did we help move to charity?); to define and clarify the role of commercial sponsors in AIP.

Six month initiatives were: to involve more members in the organization both by participation in the various committees or by other services; to create a vision based on member benefits; to identify the strengths and specialties of the individual members in order to facilitate opportunities for collaboration; to approach major financial institutions to solicit their involvement in AIP; to establish a presence at local or regional conferences that are deemed important for recruiting new members; and to establish an ongoing method of communicating the board's vision and leadership to the members of AIP.

One year tasks are: develop and attain more sponsors; have an ambassador represent us at other important conferences; adopt a CAP style standard of knowledge as a requirement of membership; develop a systematic process for regional meetings; get grant money; promote the importance of The Declaration of Interdependence that was developed following the last conference.

Membership Involvement

While we accomplished a great deal, most of the work lies ahead. It will require the help of the membership to accomplish all of what we need to accomplish. We are a volunteer organization made up of busy and successful professionals. The only way we can succeed is for each member to take some ownership of the organization and to step up and volunteer to help undertake one or more of these tasks. Take this as your call to action so that at next year's board retreat we can look back at 2006 and know that we've begun to create a vital and significant organization that will grow and prosper for years to come and that, ultimately, we will forever change the face of philanthropy for the betterment of all of mankind.

Happy Holidays to you.