February 28, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Andrew Watt, a fund raiser who spent most of his career working in his native Britain, has been named the new chief executive of the biggest organization that represents charity fund raisers in the United States and elsewhere.
Mr. Watt joined the Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2006. He replaces Paulette Maehara, who retires this month after 13 years spent leading the organization, which has 30,000 members and more than 200 chapters worldwide.
Mr. Watt’s fund-raising career started in 1993 when he joined the Institute of Fundraising in the United Kingdom, eventually becoming its deputy chief executive. He is still an honorary fellow with the organization, which represents some 350 charitable organizations in the UK.
At the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Mr. Watt is now chief program officer.
In that role and a previous job as the association’s vice president for international development, he has worked to spread the organization’s educational fund-raising materials and to open new chapters overseas. About 12 percent of the association’s members now live outside the United States and Canada, and the organization has opened chapters in Egypt and Mexico, in addition to three chapters in the Asia Pacific.
Mr. Watt has spent time at the association organizing the International Fundraising Summit, a group of some 25 fund raisers from around the world who meet annually. The group released an International Statement of Ethical Principles in Fundraising in 2006.
More Young Fund Raisers
In addition to continuing the organization’s work to help fund raisers overseas, Mr. Watt said that as chief executive he hopes to give priority to efforts to bring young people into the fund-raising profession and provide fund-raising resources to nonprofit organizations, not just the individuals who are its members.
Mr. Watt, who has a master’s degree in history from the University of Edinburgh, is a faculty member at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota, where he teaches a course on globalization in the university’s Philanthropy and Development program. And he provides fund-raising assistance as a volunteer to the National Cathedral School, in Washington, and the American Friends of Winchester College, a Delaware organization that supports the British school.
Mr. Watt will take office on March 23, when the association wraps up its annual fund-raising conference in Chicago.
