Inviting Fundraisers to Lead Culture Change: AFP GTC Board Recruitment 2025

Dear Members,

No words, sentiments, or actions best encapsulate the journey we are on, than that of Culture Change. Change in and of itself is risky, fraught, most times challenging, and sometimes rewarding.

Whatever our experiences of change, one thing we may agree on, change is inevitable. It makes no sense to stay the same while all around us evolves.

As Maya Angelou reminds us, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

Attitude change is doubly difficult because it invokes a certain form of resistance firstly from within. It’s hard to change ourselves. And sometimes attitude change invokes resistance from those around us. I remember when I was newly married, many of my male friends encouraged me not change. They were concerned that if I started to live as a married man and not a bachelor, we would no longer behave as young attached men. They were right! My transition from bachelor to married person, literally changed my attitude and changed my life too.

Our attitudes are personal to us, they direct how we relate to ourselves and to others. Attitudes cause friction even among those with whom we share the strongest of bonds. Attitude change is important because it is an important first step to culture change. The best way to change culture is to change ourselves. The best way to change ourselves is to change our attitudes.

I don’t know what changes you are currently engaged in as far as your respective roles are concerned, however I suspect these changes have much to do with responding to the impacts of our current economic climate, balancing work, rest and play, and expressing care and concern for those around us and in our global community. Imagine these are the concerns of many fundraisers across the GTA. When it comes to our concerns, how do we adapt or change things for the better? What do we need to change about ourselves?

Our chapter has been through a lot of change over the past year and more. There is more change ahead. We must continue to change our situation, we must shift and pivot, we must adapt our posture. We must change our culture and the circumstances that have brought us to where we are today.

AFP GTC is seeking a new board to lead the organization in 2025. We currently have an interim board whose roles will conclude in December 2024. The new substantive board will be responsible for continuing AFP GTC’s culture change process and prepare the organization to be future ready. Specifically, the new board will be tasked with ensuring AFP GTC does not revert to its past culture of hurt and harm towards our members and volunteers.

Since becoming interim chair, knowing how to change has actually been easy. We have a passionate board and a capable staff and advisors and members who have provided valuable insight and direction. The greatest challenge is sometimes in making change stick. When we seek change, we immediately enter into the realm of risk and uncertainty. Nobody knows the future, and nobody knows what the impact of new ways of thinking, being, and doing will be.

There probably has never been a better time for you as a member to consider how you wish to play a governance role at AFP GTC as a board member.

Between the months of July and October 2024, we will be recruiting a new substantive AFP GTC board to lead our Association into 2025. This board will be regionally, and culturally, representative, skills diverse, consisting of fundraisers from across the GTA, with broad affinity and an action oriented approach to changing the current systems in fundraising that hold our profession back.

I am attaching a draft Board Member Role and Responsibilities document which will be finalized and formally posted along with instructions of how to apply for a vacant board role as of the Fall of 2024 in time for Winter 2025.

I will be in touch again in July with further details about our board recruitment process. Till then, please take a look at the roles and responsibilities of board members and invoke your curiosity for culture change, perhaps even by changing your attitude towards AFP GTC.

for further information please read the Board Member Roles and Responsibilities.