A Thriving Chapter Enters Its Ninth Year With Big Results And Big Plans

AFP Southern Alberta Chapter

By Jess Fehr

Lethbridge Alberta and the AFP Southern Alberta Chapter are thriving! With over 400 non-profits in Lethbridge and surrounding area, now more than ever our board of directors has a duty to provide exciting and relevant educational opportunities and networking events to our membership.

As we head into our 9th year as a chapter, we are stepping up our game. We celebrated our 5th Annual National Philanthropy Day, Inspiring Philanthropy awards where we honored philanthropists in six categories; indigenous, individual/family, group, corporate, small business and youth. We also introduced a new scholarship which will be awarded to a grade 12 or first year post-secondary student who best exemplifies positive civic and community support through their interest in, commitment to, and active involvement in volunteer and philanthropic causes. This scholarship now resides alongside FOUR bursaries that will be distributed to fundraising professionals who plan to attend professional development in 2020.

AFP Southern Alberta has just under 40 active members. These members attend monthly lunch and learns and semi-annual networking events. Our upcoming lunch and learn features the incredible Guy Mallabone of Global Philanthropic. He will bring knowledge, expertise and charisma as he helps us discover new pathways towards a robust fund development plan. We know this sort of high level educational opportunity will bring in new members and engage current members.

Another exciting venture that our chapter will continue to expand on in 2020 is our library. We provide our membership access to a growing library with literature on all different areas of fund development. One of the pillars we stand by and encourage is life long learning and this is a very exiting benefit we have for our members. If you have any good recommendations for books we should consider adding to our library, please send them a long.

Finally, as we look to the year ahead, our chapter is focused on celebrating all the incredible work that is being done in our region and sharing that good news with our community. We have a great relationship with our local newspaper, the Lethbridge Herald, and are partnering with them to create a half page column each month with AFP Southern Alberta updates and stories. We will promote our events and membership incentives and most importantly, we will shout from the rooftops the amazing work our local non-profits are doing. This will be a great way to share some news stories in our community.

2020 is looking bright in Southern Alberta.

Jess Fehr is president of the AFP Southern Alberta Chapter and Faculty Development Officer for the University of Lethbridge.