Moving NAIFA Forward

By Keith Gillies, CFP, MBA, ChFC, CLU

It is hard to believe it is spring already, and I am halfway through my incredible year as your president. With every day and week, my focus is on working with our executive committee, board and senior staff to accomplish the three major objectives we reiterated in September 2017: passing the Quality Member Experience initiative and bylaws changes; fixing our endemic membership situation; and diversifying our revenue stream.

QME by-laws re-write

Immediately after the unfortunate cancellation of our Orlando Performance + Purpose conference, we consolidated the five former groups working on the QME initiative into two working groups under the standing Committee on Associations (COA). Since then, the committee members, staff and working groups of the COA have worked diligently to further develop details for our members’ review. At our winter board meeting, your Board of Trustees voted unanimously to endorse the recommendations of the working groups and the COA.

At the same winter board meeting, we set up a time-table for final and minor board corrections, along with a time-table for NAIFA staff to develop presentation material. The final documents were presented to the COA in February and we are now making presentations across the federation to members and other important constituencies.

Since the formation, and with the efforts of a large cross-section of NAIFA members and influencers, we have used the conclusions of the QME Task force to explain the critical need for NAIFA to change. We must create a more nimble and effective NAIFA. We must provide a consistent value to our members across the federation. And, we must have the vision to see the value of affiliates in every metropolitan area in our great country.

Membership

If we do not fix our membership decline, NAIFA is doomed. We believe a very big step to stemming the membership decline is by passing the QME initiative. However, we are not waiting for this long necessary step to change the governance of NAIFA to clear our delegate council. For the second year in a row, the membership initiative has been in the capable hands of our president-elect, Jill Judd. This consistency of leadership is very important as we built out systems and processes, not only for today, but for the future.

To assist immediately, we continue to work on our Corporate Dues program. We have established several corporate dues relationships, and our business development team has several bulk dues agreements on the horizon. Also, your board, again at our recent winter board meeting, authorized two additional initiatives: a professional recruiter and an emeritus dues level. The funds for the former were found within existing budget line items, and the latter rewards retired NAIFA members who are over age 65, with at least ten years of NAIFA experience. We need the leadership and experience of those members to help grow NAIFA.

We continue to encourage our state and local associations to follow the lead of the national board by considering an emeritus dues level.

Finally, we are taking the long overdue step of leveraging technology to work on meeting our membership goals.

Non-dues revenue

Because of space limitations, I will only highlight the fact that our LACP — the Life and Annuity Certified Professional Program — continues to grow. We also are relaunching our LUTCF certification and we continue to seek financial partnerships that are mutually beneficial to all parties.

Finally, I am very pleased again to recognize our friends at GAMA International and the Society of Financial Services Professionals, for their engagement with NAIFA on joint initiatives. These types of collaborative efforts benefit our organizations, our partner companies and our members.

It is my pleasure to serve as your president, and I am committed to continue moving NAIFA forward. Progress!

advisor in 1981 with a commitment to providing advice and strategies to individuals, professionals and business owners to help them achieve their personal, business and charitable goals.