Dear ACGA members, supporters, partners, and friends; 

I am honored and excited to be part of ACGA as we embark on our 2^nd century of existence.  100 years is a long time for any organization to exist, and it is a privilege to work with all the fantastic board members at ACGA who give so much of their time, knowledge, and expertise for the betterment of Charitable Gift Annuities and the entire philanthropic community.  

Most of you are aware that ACGA plays a critical role for all charities and their supporters in helping suggest maximum gift annuity rates, monitor state regulations, and advocate for changes to help all charities.  The other key goal of the ACGA’s mission is education.  We are excited to soon be launching our Charitable Gift Annuity certification series as part of ACGA’s 100^th anniversary in 2027.  This series is designed to support CGA learning across all levels, from beginners to the advanced practitioner.  They will be sequenced so people can begin with the learning track and continue with advanced courses.  We believe this will be a tremendous opportunity as the ACGA supports new fundraisers and philanthropy professionals to continue learning and growing their careers.     

We also are looking forward to celebrating and raising awareness around CGAs as part of our 100^th anniversary in April.  As many studies have shown, life income giving correlates strongly with increased overall giving by donors to their organizations.  Since a CGA is the simplest life income gift to understand and as such, ACGA wants to make these gifts more prominent and understandable for donors and charities.  ACGA will be releasing specific research in collaboration with our partners throughout the next year as well as tools you can use to promote CGAs, so please be on the lookout.   ACGA will also be more targeted in the messaging we share from our quadrennial survey that recently concluded. 

ACGA cannot do any of this work without your support.  We are an entirely volunteer-driven board, and we need your help to continue into our next 100 years.  If you are not a member of the ACGA, or were one in the past, please consider joining us in this vital work and supporting ACGA.  We consistently focus on keeping our membership fees incredibly low while delivering value to our members.  ACGA believes it is important to serve all the philanthropic community.  We hope you will go on this journey into the next 100 years with us.  

Finally, I would like to send a big thank you to Phil Purcell for his steadfast leadership over the past couple of years as our President of ACGA.  He certainly laid the foundation for all the exciting and important work we are doing.