Webinars are 60 minute sessions that allow you to learn the latest from the best in the field. Each session qualifies for 1 point toward CFRE education requirements. AFP webinars are a great professional development opportunity and they are free for members! After the webinars original air date, all registrants will be sent a code. You may watch the day you receive the code or save it for a later date.
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February 9: Effective and Efficient Capital Campaign Using New Tools & Technology
Presenter: Amy Eisenstein, ACFRE
Description:
- Learn the critical stages and timeline of a campaign
- Identify new resources available to help make your campaign effective and affordable
- Leave feeling confident and empowered about planning a successful campaign
February 23: How to Build a Comprehensive and Inclusive Communications/Stewardship Plan
Presenter: Jonathan Meagher-Zayas, CFRE
Description:
- Identify and create your communications messaging and audiences
- Apply an Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access lens to your communications strategies
- Create a comprehensive plan tailored to your audiences
- Set up tools to monitor and evaluate your efforts
March 23: Spark Greater Donor Affinity Using the Ladder of Engagement
Presenter: Michelle Vryn, CFRE
Description:
- Discuss the traditional ladder of engagement model as well as adaptations
- Explore what to look out for and how to avoid pitfalls when implementing a ladder of engagement
- Walk away with increased clarity of your blind spots for high impact engagement
- Map out steps to take supporter engagement to the next level at your organization
April 20: Fundraising BS: How Behavioral Science Shapes Our Sector and Our Practice
Speaker: Cherian Koshy, CFRE
Description:
Nobel prizes, best-selling books, and plenty of online resources have now opened our eyes to the weird ways our brains (and importantly, those of our donors) think and act. How often do we say that if potential donors knew more about what we do, they would give (or give more)? It turns out that a lot of the choices our donors make are influenced by context, not by information. But it's possible to design strategies to encourage certain decisions or discourage others. This webinar is an introduction to the principles of behavioral science and the ways it affects nonprofits and all of your donors. You will learn how to design and rigorously test a "choice architecture" that can help you and your donors make better decisions, create greater value for your donors, and improve fundraising outcomes for your nonprofit.
At the end of this session, you will be able to bring the principles of behavioral economics to your nonprofit's most pressing challenges.
Learning Outcomes:
* Understand the principles of behavioral economics and its implications on donors and fundraising
* Identify behavioral science principles at work in direct mail appeals, nonprofit websites, and face-to-face asks
* Apply choice architecture frameworks to fundraising practices
May 18: No More Bad Events! Turning Lackluster Events into Transformational Experiences
Presenter: A.J. Steinberg, CFRE
Description:
Nonprofits often complain that live fundraising events take too much time and too many resources to produce. They are frustrated by their boards’ lack of participation and the difficulties they face selling tickets and sponsorships. They feel the ROI just isn’t worth it.
NEWSFLASH: The problem isn’t bad events; the problem is bad planning and execution!
The good news is that transforming your lackluster events into high-fiving successes won’t take a bigger budget or more staff workload. Successful events are possible by using simple strategies that focus on people – those you want to assist you plan the event, those you want to attend the event, and those you want to stay in touch with after the event.
Twenty-year nonprofit event producer and engagement strategist A.J. Steinberg, CFRE, of Queen Bee Fundraising has produced over 100 successful events and raised millions of dollars for her clients, and in this webinar, she will show you the steps take to:
- revive flagging fundraising events
- recruit rockstar event committees and honorees
- open hearts and wallets at your events
- keep the love flowing after the event is done
June 1: What Sponsors are Looking for in Partners
Presenter: Chris Amos
Description:
Join AFP’s Senior Director of Business Development, Chris Amos, as he moderates a panel of some big name nonprofit sponsors to find out what sponsors are really looking for in partner organizations. Learn how to do your research, approach and follow up to secure long lasting mutually beneficial partnerships.
July 13: Ten Tactics Beyond Meeting Requests to Engage Your Donors
Presenters: Kelsey DeForest
Description:
Face to face meetings are often viewed as the holy grail of donor engagement, but a one-size-fits-all approach to donor relations is destined to fail. Endless requests to meet often only annoy donors and do not move relationships forward. By bringing in these new tactics to convey impact to your donors, you will build stronger ties to your organization and maximize donor support.
Learning Objectives:
- Apply proven tactics to diversify contact with your donors and convey the importance of their partnership and support
- Identify what types of communication and contact feel most impactful to individual donors
July 27: 10 Ways (AT LEAST) to Screw Up your Direct Mail
Presenters: Laura Amerman, Leah Eustace, ACFRE
Description:
Direct mail remains one of the most effective, yet misunderstood, tools for fundraising. In this session, we'll discuss some common ways nonprofits do direct mail poorly and how you can fix it. We'll use examples of both good and awful appeals and give attendees a chance to ask specific questions about their direct mail plans.
Participants will learn:
- How to craft an effective appeal
- The critical elements to appeal planning and budgeting
- Basic "donor brain hacks" based on the principles of philanthropic philosophy
- How to integrate sensible design into your appeal
- How to advocate for best practices (that often are rejected by leadership)
- What things to invest in and what things to abandon
August 24: Grant Research and Writing Tips and Skills
Presenter: Dr. Beverly Brown
Description:
In this session, Greater Arizona Chapter AFP member Dr. Beverly Browning (Dr. Bev) will show you how to fine-tune your grant research process and write award-winning proposal narratives based on her experience as a federal and community foundation grant application peer reviewer.
Learning Objectives
- Increased understanding of the power of the right keywords when conducting grant research for projects and programs.
- Increased applied writing knowledge of what public and private sector funders look for in an award-winning grant proposal.
September 7: Board Bloom: Real-life Strategies in Empowering Board Members to Get Involved, Impace and Influence Others
Presenter: Dr. Pazit Levitan
Based on recent doctoral research at Columbia University and a decade of working with nonprofit boards, this session will explore how board members learn to become impactful leaders in nonprofit organizations, while developing fruitful relationships with peers and staff. The session will start by presenting major findings of this research i.e. motivational factors of board members in seeking a board role and reasons for contributing to the nonprofit; how seasoned board members describe the challenges they face as nonprofit leaders and how they overcome those challenges. We will conclude with effective strategies to empower board members.
Learning outcomes include:
- Understanding board members' needs and wants
- Practical ways of approaching challenges with board members
- Suggested strategies of empowering board members to give
September 21: Beyond Bilingual: A Development Professional's Guide to Serving Diverse Communities
Presenter: Amy Wolfe, MPPA, CFRE
Description:
During the course of a development professional’s career, the time will come when you are raising funds and providing services and support to individuals different from you. To be successful at both, it is critical to learn how to navigate those differences with respect, understanding and pragmatism. In this session, we will share an approach collaboratively developed that engages all parties, navigates practical challenges, and maintains the ultimate organization’s ultimate goals
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Understand how to evaluate the differences within the communities being served
- Determine how to assess the skills and abilities within your organization to be of value
- Identify various tools to implement that incorporate and honor cultural differences
- Understand systems of continual evaluation to determine the effectiveness of the tools implemented
November 2: How to Close Every End-of-Year Gift and Set Yourself Up for Success in 2023
Presenter: Laura Fredricks, J.D.
Description:
November is always crunch time to make sure that you have the systems in place, with the right communications and outreach so that you can close all the gifts your worked so hard to put in place by that magical moment – December 31! During this time, there are many competing interests to juggle: Reaching our donors in between the upcoming holidays throughout November and December; Giving Tuesday; End-of-Year mail campaigns; Special Events; and the day-to-day tasks of running the organization. Laura has created the right structure for you to master your calendar and optimize the ideal times when you can reach your supporters. Communicating with supporters when THEY are in the right frame of mind to have those meaningful conversations will maximize your success to CLOSE all types of gifts. Bonus time – she will show you how you can use December as the perfect time to line up your visits and outreach in January and February so that you start 2023 off and running with new gifts in the new year.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Select the right mode of communications to reach each person. Keep in mind it may not be the way you have reached them previously.
- Carefully craft the right words with the right tone that will motivate them to make a decision by the end-of-the year.
- Learn the ideal week to contact each person as well as how to inspire your leadership, donors, and volunteers to help you during that week to close the gifts.
- Couple your “closing conversation” with an invitation to meet with them early in the new either to steward the gift; receive the gift if the person could not commit; or to set up the enhanced larger gift in 2023.
December 7: What is Branding, Really
Presenter: Jarrett Way
Description:
Your brand is not your logo. It's not your colors. It’s not your Twitter handle. It cannot fix a soiled reputation or your internal processes. Your brand is not decided by you, but by your audiences. As Jeff Bezos says, “your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
In this session, we’ll explore what a brand usually does—and what it should—mean. We’ll offer up a definition for “brand” that you can actually make use of in your job.
Based on decades of helping organizations define and refine their brand, we’ll discuss what truly creates brand identity and the value that comes with it. We’ll explore what drives expectation and perception in audiences and how an organization can sustain trust through branding. We’ll also touch on what branding requires of your leadership and how leaders create brand through unity and action.
By the end of this session, you’ll be able to:
- Share what a brand is (and what it isn’t)
- Identify the direct link between your brand and your business’ success
- Learn concrete tips to lead your organization’s brand into the future
December 14: Legacy Planning
Presenter: TBA
Stay tuned for details on speaker and topic for this exciting webinar!
2021 Webinar Schedule
2020 Webinar Schedule