AFP GTC “The PROMISE”

The Principles and Commitments That Guide Our Chapter

All members, volunteers, allies, and sponsors affiliated with our Chapter will be able to express a high level of pride and belonging. To do this, the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Toronto Chapter (AFP GTC) has developed our PROMISE to promote the highest standards in the fundraising profession and we are inviting all those affiliated with the AFP-GTC to join us on this journey. This includes ensuring that all members, volunteers, allies, and sponsors can demonstrably share and reflect a personal and professional commitment to dismantling the systems of oppression, including anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, and all other intersectional forms of discrimination, within the fundraising sector. For this to happen, our Chapter will become practiced at delivering service-leadership that is respectful of every culture and background, especially those who we know have been the most excluded and disenfranchised, and we will work towards making reparation for past harms. We recognize this is hard work and as imperfect humans we may make some mistakes along the way, but as such, we humbly commit to deliver service leadership to the AFP GTC fundraising community through this PROMISE:

Purpose-driven: Serving our members and the fundraising community to elevate the fundraising profession and promote growth in philanthropy. We will be focused on issues and concerns that promote the health, wellbeing, and professional development needs of the GTC fundraising community.

Reconciliatory: Understanding the root cause of historic harm and adjusting to new practices that promote racial and intersectional equity, while being accountable for our past, present, and future actions. We will be outspoken on the issues of anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism, and intersectional discrimination, that affect the fundraising profession, and work in deep allyship with other AFP Chapters and fundraising member organizations to decolonize structures, practices, and cultures that exclude the diverse fundraising community in the GTC.

Optimal: Through membership fees, events, professional development opportunities, and new avenues of sustainable revenue, we will ensure the GTC is well managed, financially strong, and sustainable, with activities that prioritize members’ interests and fulfill obligations for mutual benefit.

Member-focused: Through community outreach with the GTC, we will grow membership and activities that promote inclusive fundraising participation for the Toronto, Peel, Halton, York, and Durham Regions that is demographically representative of the GTA’s diverse community, and we will focus on prioritizing the needs of all members (especially historically excluded and disenfranchised GTC members) over any individual or collective self-interests of board members or other affiliates.

Intuitive: Be concerned with the trends, needs and emerging issues that impact the diverse fundraising community and create effective responses that represent fundraising interests, replacing past leadership hierarchies with diverse, equal, and democratic forms of collaborative leadership and representation.

Safer: Create places and spaces for all fundraisers to be their authentic selves by engaging fundraising communities with a commitment to establishing togetherness where our programs, events and learning opportunities are delivered, where members feel a strong sense of belonging, and report high impressions of membership value.

Empathetic: Be caring and compassionate, and prevent behaviours that cause harm, hurt, and or hate.

The AFP GTC PROMISE applies to all staff, board, members, volunteers, and sponsors, as well as to the broad community of co-conspirators, other AFP Chapters, other fundraising and philanthropy organizations, the GTA non-profit community, and fundraising and philanthropic professionals seeking to make progress on racial equity. 

In committing to the PROMISE, AFP GTC staff, volunteers and board members must:

• Be accountable: Prioritize the interest of members over their own.
• Respond to fundraisers’ needs: Invite all stakeholders and rights holders in fundraising to inform the strategic direction of AFP GTC, placing and practicing equity at the centre of our work.
• Be transparent: Share openly and communicate the ways change is being led, how decisions are being made, and about the organization’s challenges, opportunities, successes, and failures.
• Support the AFP GTC to effectively communicate and demonstrate its PROMISE.

Enablers that drive the PROMISE’s success:

• Board commitment and alignment to our values and objectives.
• Ongoing support, advice, and guidance from mentors, allies, and co-conspirators.
• Regular member engagement to support the voice, choice, and control of AFP GTC in ways that promote belonging and dismantle systemic anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism, and other intersectional forms of discrimination.

AFP GTC will only operate, associate, and partner with those who demonstrably commit to the ongoing work of dismantling systems of oppression.

The Partnership PROMISE:

• Build relational partnerships.
• Pursue mutually beneficial partnerships that add value to all our work and the fundraising profession in building and strengthening communities in the GTC. 
• Ensure there are no conflicts of interest, where partners or sponsors are also represented on the Board, personally or through an association with their employer or business.

AFP Greater Toronto Chapter will work to be environmentally and socially responsible while empowering the entire GTC fundraising community to adopt “the PROMISE”.