AFP Nova Scotia Chapter

By Alison Clements

Like many around the world, Atlantic Canadians are sitting at home with the same thought on their mind — we didn’t see this coming! If you asked any of us what we would be doing this spring many of us would have been thinking about our spring fundraisers not a world of self-isolation and quarantine.

The Association for Fundraising Professionals Nova Scotia Chapter has been making every effort to be responsive and helpful to our fellow fundraisers since COVID-19 crisis began. For many in our Chapter their world changed completely, this was their first foray into working from home, job priorities had to shift, events were cancelled and some were unfortunately laid off.

Our chapter itself was not immune to the changes, we cancelled all of our in-person events for the year and had to face the difficult decision of postponing our Maritime Fundraising Conference.

But as the Maritimers we are, we faced the storm of uncertainty head on. AFP Nova Scotia rallied our team and arranged town halls and virtual “brown bag” lunches to supply our members with tools to help them work through the current fundraising atmosphere.

We also take a half hour on Friday afternoons to check in on our members because (spoiler alert!) we do need to take a break from talking fundraising! It’s a chance for our colleagues to pull up a chair to a virtual kitchen table and join other development professionals to talk about their week.

Another exciting new venture will be our inaugural “AFP-NS Professional Awards — the stay the blazes home edition”. This will take place immediately after our first virtual AGM, June 9th at 11:30am. Please take a few moments to consider nominating a colleague or not-for-profit partner. Although virtual this year, we hope to incorporate them in-person at our 2021 Maritime Fundraising Conference.

A global pandemic may have tossed our regular day to days upside down but the goal of AFP Nova Scotia is to help our members, educate them, and help us all return to our donors and colleagues, better than ever.

Alison Clements is Co-Chair, Maritime Fundraising Conference and Co-Chair, Communications and Marketing. She works as Development Officer for Health Services Foundation of the South Shore.