Mentorship Committee Re-Launches with a New Cohort

by David McGoy, AFP-NYC Mentorship Committee

The new year is a great time for a restart. Whether it’s setting goals for one’s health, personal life or profession, this is the time of year when we refresh and recommit to our goals and start anew. It is only fitting, then, that the chapter’s Mentorship Committee seized the moment to launch its program with a new design and a fresh cohort of mentors and mentees.

“After a year of information gathering, program design, and intensive planning, the committee is proud to launch a program that we think will be meaningful and enriching for all of the mentors and mentees,” said Committee Chair and NYC AFP Board Member, Juliana Weissbein CFRE. ”Many thanks to the committee members, and especially to the mentors and mentees, who are showing a great deal of commitment and dedication to advancing our profession.”

The chapter made a complete overhaul of the program, formalizing its structure through an application process for both mentors and mentees and by utilizing a cohort model that is designed to select the candidates who could most benefit from the program, as well as ensure high-quality matches.

The committee also set, and then exceeded, ambitious goals for diversity, aiming for at least 75% representation from members of an historically underrepresented demographic within our profession (POC, LGBTQ, women, and staff of small organizations), and 40% percent representation in at least two of these groups.  At 93% and 62%, respectively, the cohort blew past these milestones.

“We felt that it was very important to have a cohort that was representative of the very rich range of professionals who do this work,” said Symone New, committee member and a member of the chapter’s IDEA committee. “The 26 mentors and mentees in this program represent a cross section of mission areas, professional experience, and personal identity. We are extremely proud of that.”

The mentors were recruited, selected, and matched based on their potential to benefit from the program through clearly articulated professional goals, interests, and experience. In another win for the chapter, nine of the mentors are members of the chapter’s board.  Additionally, the chapter awarded scholarships to mentors and mentees who needed assistance in securing AFP memberships. Other features of the program include a private LinkedIn discussion group, and a series of events throughout the year, and opportunities to share their knowledge and experience through micro-learning videos and commentary in Fundraising Matters. So you can look forward to meeting them and hearing more about their journey in the months to come.

We are very proud to introduce our 2021 Mentorship Program Cohort. For more information on our mentors, mentees and committee members, please visit our lookbook.

Mentors
Veronica R. Bainbridge
Chantal Bonnitto
Gregory Boroff
Joy Cooper
Adam Doyno, MPA, CFRE
Pedro Govantes
Steve Jacobson
Vikki Jones, CFRE
Thomas Moore, III
Susan Shapiro
Pinky Vincent
Kerry Pereira Watterson, CFRE
Ron Wegsman, CFRE

Mentees
Elandria Jackson Charles
Grace Chung
Renee DaCruz
Madeleine Durante
Danielle Felico
Mack Graham
Nichole Guerra
Isatou Bittaye-Jobe
Martha Lauria
Santana Moreno
Erica Sandoval
David Tomczak
Rebecca Wisotsky

AFP-NYC's Annual Meeting -- Panel Discussion now online

In late January I had the privilege to join three powerhouses in the NYC nonprofit sector to discuss the impact of the events of last year on fundraising and what the 2021 forecast looks like.  Victoria Bailey of TDF, Asha Curran of Giving Tuesday, and Tony Hillery of Harlem Grown discussed the resilience nonprofits have shown and the innovations that are changing how organizations reach their audiences. In case you missed it you can view the entire discussion below!

Tony shared that “having a team to pivot on a dime during a pandemic and not missing a beat in serving our community is one of my proudest moments."  This resilience and innovative approach to the challenges we faced prove how strong our sector is and how important we are for the communities we serve. 

There was some good news shared in the conversation, too.  Giving is up!  Donors want to help and want to find ways to connect with the organizations they care about.  Do yourself – and your organization – a favor and watch the conversation with Tory, Asha, and Tony.  The innovative programming, persistence with solicitations, and importance of resonant leadership that they address will undoubtedly fill your well with inspiration and insights to carry you forward toward more success this year.

Kerry Watterson, CFRE
Fundraising Well

 

The Panel:

Victoria Bailey	Asha Curran	Tony Hillery

 

Help us continue to bring great programs like this to the fundraising community in New York! Your donation to AFP-NYC today will support our ongoing programs and help us expand access to fundraising education for all.

The Ralph E. Chamberlain award, inaugurated by the AFP-NYC Chapter in 2012, is designed to honor an area fundraising professional for a lifetime of service to the fundraising profession and to AFP and our Chapter. Anyone who fits the criteria is eligible, except for current AFP-NYC Board members, or Board members designate or elect. The Award is presented annually at the Chapter's Annual Meeting in January.

Ralph E. Chamberlain, CFRE had a long and distinguished career of service to the AFP, beginning in the 1960s when the organization was first established as the National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR), through the late 1970s when the name was changed to the National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE), and until his death in 1999. Ralph helped form our NYC chapter, then the Greater New York Chapter. Most of his fundraising career was spent with The Salvation Army, serving many years as the director of development and director of the National Information Service. He was also founder and chairman of the board of Precise Kit Promotions Inc., a manufacturer of disaster aid kits for private and government agencies. He was a deeply committed philanthropist and volunteer and devoted much of his time to education, health and arts programs and causes. He served on the board of Hartwick College (Oneonta, N.Y.), Hassett Healthcare (Cooperstown, N.Y.), Glimmerglass Opera (Cooperstown, N.Y.), the Farmer’s Museum (Cooperstown, N.Y.), the Bergen County, NJ 200 Club and the Do-er’s Club of Bloomingdale, N.J. He frequently helped those organizations with their fundraising campaigns and other activities. A music lover himself, Ralph played the trombone with a professional orchestra in Syracuse. Ralph’s dedication to the organization was widely known. Because of his long-time support of the Foundation’s annual fund and generous planned gift, the IAFP Board of Directors renamed their Conference Scholar Program in 2000 to honor his memory and commitment to the Association.

AFP-NYC is proud to present the 2021 Ralph E. Chamberlain Award, honoring an area fundraising professional for a lifetime of service to the fundraising profession, and to AFP and our Chapter, to John Hicks, Principal and Founder of DLBHICKS, LLC.

John is Principal and Founder of DLBHICKS LLC, a consulting practice that provides fundraising guidance and support to nonprofit organizations from grassroots to global. John is a member of the faculty of Columbia University's Master's Degree in Nonprofit Management program.  He serves as a lecturer for the Rutgers University Institute for Ethical Leadership and an instructor for Candid’s “Proposal Writing Bootcamp.”  John has been awarded "Stellar Speaker" status by The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and has appeared as a featured speaker for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and Institute of Fundraising (UK). He is a contributing author to After the Grant (Foundation Center, 2010) and to The Nonprofit Handbook: Fund Raising (Wiley, 2001).

A Certified Fund Raising Executive, John is a former member of the Board of Directors of AFP International. He is past president of the AFP New York City Chapter and has served as Chair of Fund Raising Day in New York, the nation's largest one-day conference on philanthropy.

Chapter Leadership Brief 1.15.21

By Jill Scibilia, CFRE, AFP-NYC President-Elect
Vice President, Development
Phelps Hospital, Northwell Health

2020 is now hindsight. I entered the New Year filled with a sense of hope for the healing that is sure to come to our fractured world: a world that continues to battle a global pandemic and a country that faces conflict and division.

Then a few days later, I watched in horror as the events unfolded in Washington, DC. Violence erupted in our Nation’s Capitol. Our democratic process was threatened.  Lives were lost. The fallout and reckoning from the events on January 6^th have only just begun. Lessons will follow from what was a seminal day in our history. 

The challenges we face in this New Year are deep and pronounced. I will admit that when taken all together, these challenges can feel insurmountable to me. Or worse, they can even become like background noise crowding out everything else including the good that is in the world.

I have been asking myself how I can cut through the background noise and face these challenges. What is my role in doing so?  I certainly don’t have all of the answers.  Here is how I am approaching 2021. While 2020 is hindsight, I am trying to take a few lessons I learned during this strange, sad, tragic year to heart:

1. Life and each moment we draw breath is precious.
2. Every life deserves to be honored—despite and especially when—far, far too many are dying.
3. Be Kind.
4. “Lean in” to relationships and make the time and effort to connect whether it is a donor, loved one or colleague.
5. Listen for the wisdom that comes from these interactions.
6. Making a difference is not just about big ideas and gestures.  It is also about the everyday interactions we have with the person in front of us (or with whom we engage on zoom). It is often about what we call “the small stuff,” which we know is not so small at all. 
7. As a professional fundraiser I have the opportunity—and dare I say the responsibility—to help people respond to the challenges we face in the world by connecting them with tangible ways they can support. 

What’s on your list? We all have an opportunity and role to play towards healing our fractured world. 

As Mother Teresa shared “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today.  Let us begin.”

So let us begin today and each of the days we are given to make the world a better place. 

Think about your unique gifts and talents, and I hope you will engage in the conversation at the Association of Fundraising Professionals.  We are stronger when we work together and when more voices representing the deep, incredible diversity of our communities are represented. 

If you have not already done so, I encourage you to join us at our annual meeting on January 28^th.  Click here to register or for more information.

Thank you for your leadership and commitment to professional fundraising—and for all you do to help people make a difference, one moment at-a-time.

With gratitude and hope,

Jill

By Margaret Holman, President of Holman Consulting, Inc.; AFP-NYC Board Member
 

Our long time AFP-NYC board member and my friend Penny Stoil passed way the morning of December 26, 2020 after a short battle with cancer.  Penny’s talents and contributions have been felt for decades and will continue to be felt for decades to come.

She co-founded Projects Plus Inc. in 1972 with Fran Liner after 15 years each as Vice President of Berend Associates.  During her long and stellar career in the field – aided by her background in writing and public relations – Penny has helped manage hundreds of fundraising galas and raised nearly $1 billion for a wide variety of charities.

Penny was actively involved with the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) since its founding, and was a member of AFP-NYC’s Board of Directors, on which she has served proudly for more than 45 continuous years.  She is one of only three persons to have been elected as an Honorary Member of its Board.

She taught Special Events at the New School and NYU for the Chapter’s fundraising courses for a decade and is one of the Founders of Fundraising Day in New York.  She has been part of FRDNY’s Executive Committee since its beginning and generously donated the Projects Plus staff’s talents to manage each FRDNY since its founding. 

She was the recipient of the Woman of Achievement Award, presented to her by Women in Development (WID), and was AFP’s prestigious Ralph Chamberlain Awardee. In addition to the Board of AFP-NYC, she served on the Board of Directors of the Veteran Feminists of America.  In her spare time, she mentored many fundraisers and wrote books and articles.

Penny will be greatly missed by her companion, daughter and granddaughter, as well as by hundreds of friends and members of AFP New York City.

Chapter Leadership Brief 12.18.2020

By Steve Jacobson, AFP-NYC President and CEO, JCA, Inc.

For most people, 2020 can’t end soon enough.  I know that I’m one of those people.  I’d really like to see this year in the rearview mirror.  I think that we’ve all become accustomed to chalking up anything bad or just plain weird to 2020.  All of our problems will just magically disappear when the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2021, right?  Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen.

What will change things?  Taking charge!  It’s been so hard to do so in 2020 as we feel sometimes that we’ve lost control over just about everything.  Whether it’s the pandemic, racial and social injustice or political polarization, sometimes it just feels that no matter what we do, it’s not enough.  Businesses, including many nonprofits, have closed.  Tensions that pit neighbor against neighbor have escalated into open conflict.  There are forces out there that just seem to overwhelm us.

Well, in 2021, let’s change that!  We need to focus on what we can control and what we can move forward.  Our nonprofit community is resilient.  We’ve come back from adversity every time we’ve faced that challenge.  And, we’ll come through these times as well.

On January 28^th, from 9am to 10:30am, the AFP New York City chapter will be holding its Annual Meeting.  While we typically hold our meeting at one of the fantastic venues at Chelsea Piers, replete with stellar views and unrivaled Abigail Kirsch catering, this year’s meeting will be a mostly-live remote event.  The theme: Take Charge of 2021!  We have a fantastic line-up who will provide you with the insight and expertise to help you gain control.

We’ll sit down with our special guest speaker, New York Secretary of State Rossana Rosado, to discuss the key issues facing our city and state as we plan for the New Year.  Our own Kerry Watterson will moderate a panel of leading nonprofit executives and funders, including Asha Curran, the CEO of Giving Tuesday, and Tony Hillery, the Founder and Executive Director of Harlem Grown.  And, of course, we’ll have our presentation of the annual Chamberlain Award which celebrates a lifetime of dedication and service to the New York City chapter.

The Annual Meeting is free to members and just $15 for nonmembers, but everyone must register. I hope to “see” you there!

Chapter Leadership Brief 12.04.2020

By Craig H. Shelley, CFRE, Chapter Treasurer & Managing Director, Orr Group

As it does every year, the barrage of #GivingTuesday emails and social posts initially filled me with cynicism and eye-rolls but by the end of the day had me feeling inspired and optimistic about the future of our world and philanthropy’s role in it.  At my core I’m an optimistic person who believes we can do better.  The core is just buried below the jaded exterior of a native New Yorker.

Coming out of that inspirational day earlier this week thinking happy thoughts, I’ve been simultaneously thinking we need to do more to celebrate philanthropy and actively ensure its future success.  Thankfully the chapter’s National Philanthropy Day event is coming on December 8^th and will help accomplish both.  The unique format of this event (isn’t everything this year unique?) will provide an opportunity to gather, but also to participate in a dialogue on the opportunity presented by creating environments in our organizations that facilitate fundraisers of color thriving in their roles.

Philanthropy does so much good in the world, yet you need only look around an AFP event, your own offices or, in my case, look in the mirror to realize our field has only been drawing talent from a narrow band of the potential people who could be fundraisers.  Once we’re accessing the most talented people from all demographics to be fundraisers, we’ll raise more money from larger demographics of donors as well.  National Philanthropy Day will gather a panel of leaders for a discussion titled, Fundraisers of Color are the Future!  I’m looking forward to it and hope you’ll join us.

Chapter Leadership Brief 11.19.2020

By Michele Hall-Duncan, AFP-NYC Secretary, CEO and President of enCourage Kids Foundation 

I am pleased to report that I am of the age to receive the AARP Bulletin each month. The November 2020 issue contains the usual articles urging us to reset our finances, avoid scams, and understand Medicare.  It also includes an article about kindness and generosity. “It is only through the giving of oneself to others that we truly live.” This quote by Ethel Percy Andrus, truly resonated with me. It reminded me of how wonderful each of our donors are.

Thanksgiving and Giving Tuesday are less than two weeks away, and the season of giving and hope prompts us once again to tell our unique mission stories. Remember to thank your donors for their extraordinary kindness and generosity during this past year. There were many worthy causes to choose from - and they chose you.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Chapter Leadership Brief 11.05.2020

By Jill Scibilia, CFRE, AFP-NYC President-Elect
Vice President, Development
Phelps Hospital, Northwell Health

Being Kind is underrated.

By “kind,” I do not mean “nice.”  The words are sometimes used interchangeably, but they have different meanings.

Kind is defined as “of a good or benevolent nature or disposition” or “having, showing or proceeding from benevolence.” 

Nice is defined as “pleasing, agreeable, delightful.”

Perhaps I can better illustrate what I mean with a story or two.

One of my former bosses did me the greatest kindness throughout the six years we worked together by giving me the gift of her candor.  Sometimes this meant she was tough on me. That did not always feel “nice” even though it was constructive feedback.   She also gave praise when it was deserved.  There were also times when she and I did not agree, but we developed a strong relationship built on mutual respect.  More often than not, she served in the role of mentor to me, but she also helped me learn how to effectively “manage up” and give candid feedback to a leader.  

Then there was the time when a donor who was also a volunteer said to me, “Don’t be so defensive or I am going to stop sharing my thoughts with you.”  This was quite a few years ago. It was shortly after I had been given a promotion with new responsibilities including more people to manage.  I was learning that being an effective fundraiser while managing effective fundraisers was a whole new challenge.  He had been providing feedback that was not so easy for me to hear and I reacted by slipping into a defensive mode. My response was not kind or helpful, and it was shutting down the conversation.  The donor paid me the kindness of telling me. He also shared that his feedback was kindly meant and its purpose was to be helpful to me and the mission I served. 

The kindness that this boss and donor paid me helped me to grow professionally; it also helped us develop strong partnerships allowing us to ultimately achieve more for the mission of the organization we served.

Avoiding a defensive response to candid feedback is difficult; I find it challenging to this day.  Feedback is not always factual or based on facts.  It can simply be someone sharing their perspective.  When it is done with kindness and kind intent, it is always valuable.

When feedback is delivered with anger, we still have the opportunity to respond with kindness.  Kindness can diffuse situations.  Being kind is a powerful action.  A kind person approaches others with respect.  She also respects herself and expects she will be treated with respect in return. 

Finally, remember to be kind to yourself as well as others.  These are challenging, unprecedented times. 

Being kind and its mindset of “having, showing or proceeding from benevolence” is by its very definition the work we as fundraisers work to nurture in others.  The work you do matters and makes a difference.

Thank you for your leadership and commitment to professional fundraising.

With gratitude and kindness,
Jill

Chapter Leadership Brief 10.23.2020

By Steve Jacobson
AFP-NYC President and CEO, JCA, Inc.

As you’re undoubtedly aware, Election Day is now just 11 days away.  For some 47 million of us who have already voted, we can sit back and know that we’ve fulfilled our constitutional duty to cast our ballots for our preferred local, state and federal candidates.  For those of you who haven’t yet voted in person (early), by mail or secure ballot box, please get out there and do so now.  And, of course, if you’re going to vote at your polling place on Election Day itself, stay safe and cast your ballot.

One thing that I would like you to think about if you haven’t yet voted – and I’m not about to tell you whom to vote for – is to think about the future of charitable fundraising before you do.  Let’s support the candidates who believe in the good work that we all do.  Let’s support the candidates who value the services we provide and the missions that we serve.  And, let’s support those candidates who support and incentivize charitable giving. 

As part of the CARES Act passed in March, Congress established a temporary $300 above-the-line deduction for anyone who makes a charitable contribution in 2019 or 2020 ($600 if married).  That’s certainly a start, but what really needs to be done is to expand that deduction even more.  In fact, right now, there is a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would, indeed, do just that.  Sponsored by Senators Lankford (R-OK), Coons (D-DE), Lee (R-UT), Shaheen (D-NH), Scott (R-SC) and Klobuchar (D-MN), The Universal Giving Pandemic Response Act would increase the deduction from the current $300 to $4,026 for individuals and $8,052 for married couples. The House has taken up an identical bill, introduced by Mark Walker (R-NC) and Chris Pappas (D-NH) and co-sponsored by three other Republicans and nine other Democrats. However, neither bill makes this deduction permanent.

With all this bipartisan support across both chambers of Congress, it sounds like this should be a slam dunk, right?  Unfortunately, both bills have been referred to committee and there they sit, taking a backseat to other coronavirus legislation, the Supreme Court nomination and the election itself.  So, what can you do?  Write or call your legislators and tell them how important an increase is to the universal charitable deduction is – and to make it permanent.

Vote!  Vote!  Vote!