Let’s Make 2024 the Best Year Yet for our AFP Chapter
Chapter Leadership Brief 1.12.24
By Craig H. Shelley, CFRE
President, Association of Fundraising Professionals, New York City Chapter
Partner + Chief Growth Officer, Orr Group
Thank you for the opportunity to serve as our Chapter’s President over the next two-years. It’s a humbling opportunity to help ensure New York City fundraisers have the community and resources we deserve.
As I’ve prepared for this unique challenge, I’ve thought a lot about our profession. I am, as I always have been, inspired by the impact fundraisers make in the world and appreciative to those who have dedicated their lives to what is often a thankless and always difficult profession. AFP has a unique opportunity to support your work and provide a community of peers you can learn from and commiserate with. I look forward to working with our board and officers and all of you to realize that promise.
Over these last several months as my term approached and began, I’ve often been asked what my “vision” was or where I’d focus my attention. Thanks to the leadership of my immediate predecessors, Jill Scibilia and Steve Jacobson, and so many leaders and chapter members, I’m able to answer that question expansively.
I’m optimistic we can drive the chapter forward around these key objectives:
- Ensuring the chapter is providing a vibrant community for all New York City fundraisers. I want to ensure our content and events are relevant to and reach the greatest number of New York City fundraisers.
- Help the sector to realize the full benefits of a more diverse work force working in more equitable and inclusive environments. Our chapter has done a great job instilling the values of IDEA (AFP Global’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access initiative). It’s time for us to move to project our values and have an even greater impact in the field.
- Activate our board for collective action. The leaders I serve with are truly some of the best and smartest leaders and fundraisers in New York City. Whatever their focus, they make an impact. If we can coalesce around big ideas and better understand all facets of the chapter’s work, I know we can do so much more for our community.
I look forward to your feedback on these priorities and would love to learn more about your hopes for our chapter and the needs you’d like to see it meeting. You can reach out to me at any time at cshelley@orrgroup.com and I’d welcome you to follow me on Twitter (am I really supposed to call it X?) @craigshelley. Or, best yet, come join me in-person at our annual meeting on Wednesday, January 24th where among other things we’ll have a dynamic panel discussing the outlook for 2024 and the impact on philanthropy. This first event for 2024 is going to be a great place to get the information and energy you need to start the year strong.
Craig Shelley is a partner and chief growth officer at Orr Group, which provides nonprofits with strategy, fundraising, leadership, talent, and management solutions. Craig brings an entrepreneurial approach to leadership and partners with the sector’s most ambitious leaders. Prior to joining Orr Group, Craig served in a variety of positions with the Boy Scouts of America, most recently as national director of development. He serves as President of the Association of Fundraising Professionals New York City Chapter and is a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE).