7:30 a.m Pier Rogers: “Good morning. I’d like to call our annual membership meeting to order, and welcome all of you to this very early meeting in beautiful Raleigh, NC. I’ll also take this opportunity to remind you of the importance of continuing to use your face masks and maintaining social distancing during the meeting. Please remember too to pay attention to the tags you see on your friends and colleagues name badge – if you see ‘elbow only’ or ‘wave from a distance’ please respect their wishes”
I’d like to start this morning’s business by thanking all the Board members who work so diligently to lead this organization. Since 2020, we’ve all been challenged, and it’s no different for the Board. Virtual meetings, on a quarterly basis, meant a much greater time commitment, and I deeply appreciate everyone for stepping up and coming through on their commitment to service to ARNOVA. And on a more bittersweet note, I’d like to take a moment to recognize the four individuals who have served ARNOVA for the last six years and have completed their Board service. As I call your name, please come to the podium: René Bekkers, . . .Brenda Bushouse. … Lindsey McDougle. I’d also like to take a moment to recognize Khaldoun AbouAssi for his service to the Board; unfortunately, Khaldoun couldn’t be with us today. Please help me thank René, Brenda, Lindsey and Khaldoun for their dedicated service.
It is also my honor to welcome our four new Board members: Julia Carboni, Alisa Moldavanova, and Nathanial Wright, our new At-Large Board members, as well as our new Secretary Kelly LeRoux. The four of you are stepping onto the Board just as we imagine the possibilities for our next 50 years, and I look forward to working with each of you. Thank you.
I’m pleased to announce the following list of committee chairs and members for the upcoming year, and know that Emily Barman and our entire association will be well served with Board members acting in this capacity:
- Membership: Co-Chairs Mirae Kim and Alisa Moldavanova
- Development – Chair Jasmine Johnson
- Diversity – Co-Chairs Julia Carboni and Kelly LeRoux
- Finance & Audit – Chair, Margaret Sloan; Emily Barman will also serve on this committee
- Nominations – Co-Chairs: Esi Ansah and Nathaniel Wright
- Publications – Chair: Paloma Raggo; Jason Coupet will serve as a member of this committee
- Conference – Co-Chairs David Campbell and Helen Liu
- Professional Development – Co-Chairs (non-Board member) Jodi Benenson and Pier Rogers
- Research – Co-Chairs Paloma Raggo
- Anti-Harassment – Chair (non-Board member) Roseanne Mirabella and Nathaniel Wright will serve as a member of this committee
- And our Executive Committee will be Emily Barman, Margaret Sloan, Kelly LeRoux, Jason Coupet and me.
Our time is brief this morning, so I’ll quickly run through some highlights of both the last year specifically, and my tenure as Board President more broadly.
COVID
The COVID pandemic led to:
*2020 – our 1st all virtual conference.
*2021 – a planned smaller conference in Atlanta – which we held with safety protocols in place. It was our 50th Anniversary – so we started celebrating; knowing that we would continue into 2022.
The 2020 and 2021 conference experiences also led us to figure how best to engage our members “from a distance”. That meant all virtual in 2020 – out of necessity; and then our first “hybrid” conference in 2021 – as we experimented with a balance of in-person and online experiences. However, we learned a great deal about the tremendous financial cost of hybrid conferences – when you have the regular in-person expenses AND the tech and staffing support necessary. Hybrid conferences are actually more expensive than all-virtual. That tremendous cost of hybrid conferences is a factor that must be considered as we balance the interest in engaging our members who cannot always travel.
On the NVSQ front – in addition to recognizing the 50th anniversary of NVSQ in 2021, we have new NVSQ editors as of July 1st – Joanne Carman and Jaclyn Piatak. We’re excited at the work they’re doing to continue the legacy of NVSQ and to move it into the future.
Zoom – We’ve joined so many throughout the world in using this platform to engage with one another in new ways – for the board, for Sections and more. Questions arise though - What does this mean for our future – we are an “engagement” association – we thrive on our networking, bumping into one another in elevators, hallways – engaging ideas and providing feedback about research over lunch, dinner, drinks. Will this be changed? How can we be sure that the changes align with our values and our culture of engagement?
DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)
Our work continues, as it is a journey, not a destination that we can achieve and say “we’re done, we’ve arrived”. The DEI committee, the board, Sections and more all continue to consider these matters. We seek funding to continue and expand the undergrad and graduate diversity leadership programs whose intent is to grow the pipeline of researchers/academics/practitioners of color in the nonprofit/social, philanthropic sector. We’ve begun an HBCU initiative to do strategic outreach with historically Black Colleges & Universities to as a pilot that might be further developed and expanded in other settings (e.g. Hispanic-serving institutions). We’ve begun asking what does DEI look like from a non-US vantage point so that we continue to learn and do work that makes sense given who we are as an association. All these questions and more are on the table for exploration and development.
New Strategic Plan
This has been a huge project in 2022. The committee of: Emily Barman, Margaret Sloan, Jason Coupet, Helen Liu, Kennedy Musyoka, Crystal Trull, Lynnette and myself have worked for months. Member input was gathered through several questions in the membership survey. There were meetings held with Sections, with staff. Sessions were held with the board at several board meetings to elicit their input and feedback. Interviews were conducted with funders, with several past ARNOVA Presidents, and others with whom ARNOVA collaborates like (ISTR, GrantStation, Independent Sector). Starting today we’re asking for your feedback on the draft strategic plan; on your table is a QR code that will link you to a landing page (we’ve also put that link in the chat for those of you joining via zoom) that will take you to the draft strategic plan and a form that will let you share your feedback. This feedback will be shared with the Board before they vote in December on whether to approve this plan, so please share your thoughts. Implementation of what is approved begins in 2023. I’d like to offer a huge thanks to Dr. Jennifer Madden – currently Dean of Business School at Linfield Univ. (and someone who has been an ARNOVA member over the years) who led us through this process. Bottom line – constituent engagement in the process was key. As we head into 2023, operationalizing the plan will include strategies to raise the resources needed to implement new initiatives. Our board and all of you as our members can help with that – by your gifts. Our board last year did 100% board participation in giving. We continue with that as our goal. Won’t you join us again this year. That helps, as you know, when we go to funders to ask them to support our work – when we can say 100% of the board has given; and X % of the members also gave. Funders do pay attention to that message.
Finally, it’s been a great experience, a demanding experience as I’ve served as President since Nov. 2020. I have grown, and I’m proud that the board continues to grow in its path towards becoming more of a governing board. I have also experienced a great partnership in working with our ED, Lynnette Cook, and with the ARNOVA staff. I look forward now to handing over the reins to Emily Barman, who succeeds me as our incoming President.
I’ll now turn to Lynnette to give her ED report.
7:45 a.m. Lynnette Cook: Thank you Pier, and hello everyone. Thank you all for joining us this morning.
I’d like to share some highlights from the year with you before turning things over to Margaret for a review our finances. Of course, among our most important member services are our conferences; we have 573 total registered attendees this year, joining us either in-person or virtually.
Another critical piece of ARNOVA is our journal, NVSQ. As Pier mentioned, our new editors are in place and have had an active first few months. We’re delighted to be working with them and look forward to the years ahead.
In terms of our membership, we have 1000 total members as of last week; we are still below our pre-pandemic high of 1,327 members but we’re excited that we’ve maintained as well as we have! Hopefully as the pandemic finally resolves, and we can do more outreach - particularly at HBCUs as well as other organizations where we’ve identified nonprofit scholars who aren’t yet involved with ARNOVA - we’ll be on the path to growth again.
We’ve had a few challenges this year that I’d like to share, because it’s important that you’re aware of key operational issues. On January 6th we were informed by our previous auditor that they were no longer able to complete our audit for 2021, despite having planned for pre-audit field work in January. Fortunately, we were able to release an RFP quickly and received two submissions. On March 21st the Board voted to accept the proposal from Clark, Schaeffer, Hackett who completed our audit for 2021. Margaret will share the details of that audit in a few moments.
Then, on February 1st, our assigned accountant at Clifton, Larson, and Allen let me know that he had accepted a promotion at CLA and would no longer be on our account. As our Finance Committee and several of our section leaders know, this has meant severely delayed financials both for ARNOVA as a whole and for sections specifically. Because of our 6 year track record with them, and the challenges the accounting field is facing as a whole, we tried to work with them to resolve the issue; however, after their last meeting Margaret let me know that the Finance Committee is ready for me to put out an RFP to find a new accountant. I’ll update the membership as soon as we’re able to select a new accounting firm.
February 28th was also the date that our contract with IUPUI for HR support was terminated. You may recall that the Board instructed me at their meeting last November to pull our HR contract (the last remaining formal connection we had with IU) and set up our own HR systems. I don’t have end of year financials yet, but it looks like this new arrangement will lower costs for benefits and give us greater flexibility for hiring as necessary.
On March 24th our landlord at Girls, Inc. in Indianapolis sent us a 30-day notice to vacate our suite in the building because they intended to sell it to a developer in the area. Fortunately, we were able to secure a new space in the Indiana Interchurch Center, and moved to a temporary location in the building in May, then in September were able to move to our permanent suite on the ground floor. If you’re ever going to be in Indy, please let us know – we’d be delighted to show you around and introduce you to some of our new nonprofit neighbors.
In my last few minutes, I’ll share that our Policy Symposium with Independent Sector continues to grow. We held this forum virtually (again) in 2022, again in September, with 510 registered attendees – and despite the fact that it was held for three hours on a Friday afternoon, even as we signed off we still had over 100 individuals actively engaged. It was great to see practitioner engagement in the policy realm, particularly focused on the sector as (positive) employer.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to thank our incredible staff. Fatima Hussain, Mary Kate Myers, Natalia Rivera, Angie Franco, Emily Torres, and Julio Castro are here today (please stand if you’re in the room). I read a lot about leadership, and what it takes to maintain work-life balance as well as a supportive and caring work environment. I read all that stuff partly because I’m a geeky researcher at heart and think it’s fascinating (like many of you) but also because I want to learn better so I can do better. What I’ve never seen in the literature is the part about how being a leader is SO much easier when you have an amazing team. I do. And I appreciate them every day.
It’s now my distinct pleasure to hand the mic over to Margaret Sloan, our Treasurer.
7:50 a.m. Margaret Sloan: reports clean audit and reviews financials (documents available here)
I’ll now hand the mic to Mirae Kim who will share results from this year’s Membership Survey
8:00 a.m. Mirae Kim: reports survey results (document available here)
I’m pleased to hand the mic back to Pier for final comments.
8:05 a.m. Pier Rogers: Our final agenda item today is New Business. Are there any comments or questions from the floor? You’re welcome to ask your questions via the conference app or write them on the index cards on your table and staff will come by to pick them up. If we run out of time, we will be sure to post all the questions and their answers on our website after the conference.
(questions from audience)
Thank you all for joining us this morning. Breakfast is available just outside the main doors, and the next set of concurrent sessions start at 8:45 am.
Pier Rogers adjourns meeting at 8:30 a.m.