Giving Institute Colleagues:

I hope this message finds you well and making plans to celebrate the holiday season with family and friends, no matter how you may relate to the season and no matter how you might define your family.

I happen to have inherited the role of Giving Institute Chair during a time of extraordinary growth and change. I can’t take credit for this growth and am simply working to lead us effectively with your help. At our November board meetings in Chicago, we had about 120 people who participated in person in some aspect of those activities: Mentor Series, dinner in Chicago, programs on DEI/the economy/succession planning and board meetings. The dinner Wednesday evening was so crowded one could hardly move around (we will try to fix that going forward). It is really wonderful to see all this active participation and experience your engagement in our shared work.

Giving Institute membership has risen to an all time high of 67 as I write this letter. The Angeletti Group, led by Jay Angeletti, is our newest member. Welcome! We have two new firms slated to become members in January. Another firm is being reviewed by the executive committee currently and we have three other firms in the application process. I am not naming these firms because it is our policy to wait until a firm has formally joined before announcing their membership. Assuming all these firms join soon we will have 73 members. We have already had 11 new members in calendar year 2022. So, if we get to 73 members soon, our membership ranks will have grown by nearly 33% in about 12 months. That’s a lot. Growth is great for our association and what we aim to accomplish if we can stay focused on engaging and serving members well. This is what we officers of Giving Institute are focused on. We appreciate your engagement and help.

I say all this in part because our current membership committee chairs, Aly Sterling and Todd Bayliss, are stepping down after over two years of great service to our association. Thank you both! We now look to the future with our growth pattern in mind. I am very happy to announce that Sarah Dave of Grants Plus and Kate Roosevelt of Campbell & Company have agreed to serve as membership committee co-chairs beginning January 1 (although they have already begun their work). Sarah and Kate plan to take an intentional approach analyzing our marketing, our application process, how we onboard new members, engagement of members and retention strategies as they move forward. They plan to invite all current committee members to stay on if they wish and expand the committee to allow us to focus on the above-mentioned objectives. Amid all this, we also want to proactively reach out to minority owned firms that may not either know us or see themselves as potential GI members and advance our DEI efforts by helping these firms feel welcome to apply and engage. It’s a lot and I know they are up to the task with your help and support. Stay tuned.

With all this change we also see some transitions I want to note. Jim Yunker, who has been a GI member for over 25 years, is leaving us as a member at the end of the year. Jim once served as Chair of the Council on Methodology and Vice Chair for Giving USA Foundation. He has always been a warm and gentle soul to our proceedings when present. We will miss him. Finally, Rachel Hutchison has announced her departure from Blackbaud in January. It is hard to imagine any one person who has done so much for Giving Institute and Giving USA. The list is too long to account for here. Congratulations, Rachel, and best of luck in you next endeavor.

Thank you again and be well this holiday season.