May 7, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
Two of the nation’s biggest organizations of fund raisers are in talks about joining forces.
The organizations, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, an Arlington, Va. group with 30,000 members, and the 8,000-member Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, in Indianapolis, announced on Friday that they are at the start of discussions “aimed at developing an affiliation agreement and forming a united organization.”
Officials from both organizations declined to discuss details, but said that a diversity of arrangements are being considered.
Paulette V. Maehara, chief executive of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, says the groups will likely stop short of a full merger, instead creating some sort of an affiliated structure, where the groups would each maintain an independent board, while sharing some program work and as many administrative tasks, like membership processing, as possible.
The two groups already share nearly 3,000 members.
Tanya Howe Johnson, chief executive of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, which represents people who seek bequests and other planned gifts, says creating partnerships was one of the key recommendations of her group’s 2007 strategic plan. Another of the recommendations was for the organization to present a new image and name, which in did last year when it changed its title from the National Committee on Planned Giving.
Both organizations, Ms. Johnson says, recognize the value of potentially pooling resources, eliminating areas of duplication, and bringing all kinds of fund raisers under one umbrella.
A timetable for the talks has not yet been set.
