Communicating Across the Miles

I just spent a great two days in the Bay area, attending the Golden Gate Chapter’s National Philanthropy Day celebration and holding a couple of very informative town hall meetings with that chapter, as well as the California Capital and Yosemite chapters.

Andrea McManus and I have met many chapters this year through these town hall meetings. It’s helped us understand your environment, the challenges and opportunities you face, far better. It’s also helped us focus our plans to serve you.

One of the big themes that has come out of these meetings, nearly everywhere we’ve gone, is how chapters want—and need—to be talking with each other more. We’re missing out on great opportunities when chapters in close proximity to each other are not talking with each other on a regular basis.

But it’s more than just geography. A lot of the larger chapters I’ve visited want to speak with chapters their own size about various issues. And I’m hearing that membership chairs or education chairs want to stay in better contact with each other.

We have Like-Sized Chapter Meetings at our International Conference and Leadership Academy, but it’s clear those opportunities are not enough. We’ll be working at AFP IHQ to develop some models on how we can keep chapters and chapter leaders better connected. In the meantime, let me know how we can help develop and nurture chapter connections!