Apra Carolinas 2024 Membership Survey Results & Key Takeaways
Written By: Jennifer Kehoe, Membership Chair

A warm and big THANK YOU to all the participants in this year’s membership survey! Your input is invaluable to our organization, providing crucial insights that help shape our future initiatives and programming. Your responses offer a window into the diverse needs and interests of our membership, allowing us to tailor our offerings and ensure we're delivering the most relevant and beneficial resources to support your professional growth.

Your feedback on potential topics for educational opportunities, conference attendance, and areas of interest helps us create more targeted and impactful events. We're especially grateful for those who expressed interest in volunteering, as your willingness to contribute your expertise strengthens our community. Your candid thoughts and suggestions are the driving force behind our continuous improvement, enabling us to better serve you and advance the field of prospect development.

Nearly half of you would like to see more in-person networking. A little over 33% of you had a positive response when asked if you would be attending our Fall Conference, with almost 50% unsure.  Be sure to SAVE THE DATE FOR THE FALL CONFERENCE: October 24^th and 25^th at Clemson University in Clemson, SC. Please join us!

Our participants have quite a range of experience, which is fantastic for our membership:

Unsurprisingly, job titles are as varied as we would expect, including:

• Assistant Vice-President, Advancement Operations & Annual Campaigns
• Data Analyst
• Deputy Director of Philanthropy
• Director of Advancement Services
• Director of Prospect Development
• Director of Prospect Management
• Director of Prospect Research
• Executive Director, Prospect Development
• Gift Processing and Prospect Manager
• Philanthropy Manager
• Prospect Research Analyst
• Senior Director, Prospect Research
• Senior Research Analyst

It may surprise you to learn that the majority of the respondents now work remotely. Amazing to see how the workplace has changed since 2020!

You’ll be as happy to hear, as we were, that our participants come from many different sectors:

• Higher Education: 58.3%
• Healthcare: 11.1%
• Social and Human Services: 8.3%
• Environmental/Wildlife/Zoos: 8.3%
• Vendor: 5.6%

We made sure to ask you what your top training needs are so that we can plan future events that will be of interest to you. Here are some of the topic areas you highlighted:

• Prospect Identification
• Pipeline Development
• Data Analytics/Data Mining
• Predictive Modeling Scores
• Portfolio Management
• Reporting/Dashboards

You told us what you felt were the best qualities of Apra Carolinas – welcoming, engaging, innovative, supportive and more:

We were very delighted to see that some of you want to volunteer with Apra Carolinas to serve on our Committees or to speak at an event or a webinar. Please know that we will be reaching out to you soon if you're interested!

Finally, you told us what services you would like to see us offer and the following stood out:

• Mentoring
• More in-person networking opportunities
• More virtual education opportunities/webinars
• Library resource for articles/trends

The Apra Carolinas board would like to thank each and every one of you for participating in this year’s survey. We are a better organization because of your feedback. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any time!

Finally, a hearty CONGRATULATIONS to our two $50 Amazon Gift Card winners Tohry Petty and Rachel Wilfahrt!

We look forward to seeing you at our virtual events and at our in-person events over the next couple of months: Apra PD Mid-Atlantic Happy Hour on August 21st in Seattle and, our Fall Conference on October 24^th and 25^th.