Dear Apra Community,

Here we are at the beginning of another year. What will 2025 bring us? Regardless of whether this is the beginning of your fiscal year or is just another flip of the calendar pages, we hope you are feeling energized after some time to recharge with family and friends. We also hope you are just as enthused about helping your organization reach its fundraising goals as a true partner in those efforts.

Looking back on this past year, the Apra community once again came together to make magic happen. Over 900 of us gathered in Seattle — alongside nearly 300 virtual attendees — for three days of astounding programming at the always enlightening Prospect Development 2024 (PD2024) conference. Each year, we think that nothing can top the previous year — but somehow, it always does. If you missed the announcement, Prospect Development 2025 (PD2025) is in Baltimore, and we hope to see you there! If you’d like to share successes and lessons learned from your organization and/or prospect development team with the Apra community, speaker submissions will open soon.

In case you missed it, the Ethics and Compliance Committee released another indispensable resource, the Ethics in AI for Fundraising Toolkit. As the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence in prospect development raises both compliance issues and ethical considerations, the toolkit offers guidance around implementation. Furthermore, it provides additional insights to avoid perpetuating biases in data, protect data privacy and more. Apra members at the Professional and Organizational level can access the toolkit for free.

One of our personal favorite offerings, the triannual Apra Salary Survey was released this past fall. If you missed it, the salary survey not only equips readers with the data needed to advocate for their compensation and benefits, but also assists them in making the case for staffing levels and compensation trends for their teams at their organizations. We were excited to see that in 2024, 76% of respondents reported an increase in their base/bonus compensation from the prior year — a jump of around 40% in 2021 — suggesting the bleaker times of trimmed resources from the pandemic are mostly behind us.

Apra members and readers of Connections continually remark that they find the exchange of ideas, best practices and advice from other prospect development professionals to be indispensable. This was certainly the case in 2024, and of course, we are biased and think some of the best parts of Apra content this past year were these fabulous articles. The Content Development Committee (CDC) reviewed our 2024 archive and had the painstaking task of narrowing it down to this “best of” list. We hope you enjoy it, as well as our highlights from the four Body of Knowledge categories!

Here are our picks:

Data Science:

While wealth ratings are important at an organization, any PD professional can tell you that’s not everything in a relationship. After all, who doesn’t have a Bill Gates, Oprah or MacKenzie Scott in their database with absolutely no connection? Chris Copsey discusses how he built an affinity score to measure a prospect’s relationship specific to UNC Health and more effectively segment their donor base. 

• Affinity Scores: Ranking Prospect Engagement for Improved Strategy

Leadership:

One thing that we appreciate about the 2020s is a growing emphasis on self-care and openly managing your mental health. In this series by the CDC’s very own Jennifer Huebner, members of the PD community were interviewed for ways they care for their mental, physical and emotional well-being.

• Minding Our Mental Health: Perspectives from Prospect Development Peers, Part 2

This piece is part of a series; view Part 1 here.

Helen Brown is often one of the first names that people learn about when they enter the prospect development profession. The news that former Apra President Melissa Bank-Stepno became the new owner, president and CEO of Brown’s firm was the perfect time to interview Brown and learn about her past and future plans.

• An Inspiring Career and an Exciting Next Chapter: Q&A With Helen Brown

Professional Development:

As prospect development professionals, curiosity and creativity are two characteristics often deemed to be essential for our work. Former CDC member Kelly Douglas highlights creative ways our peers endeavored to satiate their curiosity around using tuition reimbursement benefits to expand their knowledge across numerous areas, with varying time commitments.

• Smart Uses of Tuition Reimbursement

Prospect Research:

How much do we love our field? In this compilation of survey responses timed to align with Valentine’s Day, more than a dozen professionals chimed in about all the things there are to love about what we do — from how Apra energizes our work, to what keeps us inspired.  

• Love Letters to Prospect Development

Relationship Management:

While the population is 8.025 billion people and growing, it turns out it’s a small world for many of our prospects. Kristal Enter encourages us to look outside the traditional realms of business and board relationships when it comes to our prospects and think about the ways they may define their community.

• Community Ties: A Strategic Approach to Relationship Mapping

Ask the Ethicist:

Is political contribution data appropriate to use in research profiles? What about if I just consult the FEC data? How about if FEC data is included in a wealth screening, by the screening vendor? You will want to consult this Ask the Ethicist column for guidance on how to stay ethically and legally compliant when grappling with these sorts of questions, especially around and following election seasons.

• Ask the Ethicist: How Should We Approach FEC Data for Prospect Research in 2024?

Here’s to the endless possibilities that await us in 2025. From the Apra and the entire CDC, happy new year!

Jennifer Moody

Apra Content Development Committee Chair 2024-2025

Jennifer Huebner

Apra Content Development Committee Vice-Chair 2024-2025