President's Blog

Dear Fundraiser:

As the president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Miami-Dade Chapter, I want to reflect on the past 35 years I have been privileged to work in this field. The attraction to me was meeting and working with so many great professional staff and volunteers…people who can make things happen and change the life of many in their path. I look forward to continuing this journey and to working closely with our Board and membership in 2011. As we all know in development, one cannot do this alone – it certainly takes a team and that has been proven time and time again. Please join us and help us make this the best AFP Chapter in Florida.

For those of you not an AFP member, I suggest you consider the benefits of joining us and for those members who want to get more involved, I ask you please call me at 305-332-2660 to discuss how we can best accommodate you.

Sincerely,
Sallie Byrd
Senior V.P. of Development
Florida Heart Research Institute
AFP Miami-Dade Chapter, President

September 8, 2010

Dear Friends:

Many of you have already taken advantage of the great membership opportunities so far this year and there is a lot more to come!

In June, the Miami-Dade AFP was a co-sponsor of Planet Philanthropy.  It was a great success with over 400 members attending from chapters across Florida. 

Thanks to our “crack” Education Committee, we had over 40 people attend the CFRE information session in July!  It was great to see both long time members and new members. Our thanks to Kare Carbonell, CFRE, Demetria Caston, CFRE, and Peggy Calhoun, ACFRE for their terrific presentations!

Mark your calendar on November 8 for our day long education event at the FIU Graham Center Maidique Campus. The speaker will be Donald R. Gray who recently retired as vice president at the University of Wisconsin Foundation, where he was one of a team responsible for guiding the university’s $1.5 billion “Create the Future” campaign.  This is a great opportunity to bring your dean or CEO to learn more about “how to make the BIG ask”!

The committee will also be hosting another breakfast meeting “The Color of Money” on December 3 at Jungle Island from 8 – am.

Also, please mark November 17 as National Philanthropy Day (NPD) at the Downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel.  Our honorees are

Dr. Sanford and Dolores Ziff

Lifetime Achievement Award

Dan and Trish Bell

Outstanding Philanthropist

Comcast

Julia Tuttle Award – Corporate Citizenship

Julie Grimes

James W. McLamore Outstanding Volunteer

 Finally, we will be celebrating our Board elections and annual meeting on December 7 from 6 – 8 pm at Jungle Island. Please plan to join us!

My thanks to your AFP Board who has been “working overtime” to bring you great opportunities this year.

Contact me if you are interested in being considered for nomination for a board position next year or serving on a committee. We have lots of fun working together and are always looking to involve new people.

Ellen Oppenheimer

President

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. This is the first blog I ever write and look forward to contributing some thoughts through this medium more often. I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce the readers to the new website of the Miami-Dade Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. You can visit the website at www.afpmiami.org.

I encourage all of you to take some time and click around and check out our brand new website. The Board of Directors and I are extremely pleased to offer this long overdue service to our fellow fundraising professionals and non-profit community at-large.

The website is very user-friendly and full of helpful information and tools for fundraisers of all levels. There is a section devoted to Membership which describes in detail why it is so important and valuable to be an AFP member. Other sections provide readers with in-depth information on career development and fundraising news and tools. Within the Career Development section, users are able to search for and post job opportunities within the fundraising field.

One section we are particularly excited about is the Events section which contains information on our annual National Philanthropy Day event and also our educational programming. An added benefit is the ability for not-for-profits to post events of their own on the site. We like to think of it as a community calendar for all non-profit organizations.

Some of my future posts may focus on local fundraising issues. Other posts may be about national fundraising issues or just general fundraising topics. Some may be very professional and other may be light-hearted. But generally speaking, all my topics are aimed to enhance the fundraising field and afford each of us an opportunity to learn from each other through this wonderful tool. I encourage you to visit our website often and drop by the blog as future posts are made so that we can all help each other advance philanthropy in our wonderful Miami-Dade County community.

Thank you,

L. J. Rodriguez