Leading the Way Leading the Way
Develop Leadership, Promote Friendship, Provide Service
Through nearly 100 years, more than 525,000 college students have embraced Alpha Phi Omega’s Cardinal Principles of Leadership, Friendship, and Service while building better communities, creating lasting connections, and developing lifelong habits of giving to others. Our student members, today, represent and serve society more broadly than ever in our history.
Your Fraternity is taking bold action to ensure that we can continue to offer strong and relevant student experiences in the years ahead. We are committed to providing high quality leadership opportunities on a scale attainable only at a national level.
We are committed to meeting students where they are and engaging them in meaningful and relatable ways that will help them Develop Leadership, Promote Friendship, and Provide Service for today and for the entirety of their lives.
Leading the Way for a second century of Alpha Phi Omega!
To fulfill these commitments, the National Board of Directors has developed a Strategic Direction roadmap and launched the Leading the Way campaign to raise the resources necessary to propel the Fraternity forward. We invite you to become a partner in the next stage of APO’s ongoing journey to inspire and empower more students to practice servant leadership for the improvement of their campuses, communities, and world.
“We enjoy being of service. This is a group of college friends who want to provide service to their college, communities, world, and beyond.”
Quinn C.
Strategic Roadmap
Goal 1: Foster an ever-growing, inclusive organization.
Goal 2: Help members achieve their leadership potential.
Goal 3: Improve the communities to which we belong.
Leading the Way: Four Pillars of Support
APO Leadership Institute
APO members realize and hone their leadership skills as they plan and execute volunteer projects and fellowship opportunities. While many organizations, including social Greek fraternities, provide social events, and some offer intermittent service-related activities, APO is unique in its focus on leadership development through service.
The time is now to invest in the next generation of leaders. The APO Leadership Institute will take our Cardinal Principles to participating high schools, with an emphasis on reaching urban areas and connecting existing chapters with high school administrators.
APO will use a near-peer model, where an individual who is one or two stages ahead in a learning spectrum assists as a mentor. This will enhance high school student’s understanding of the process to attend college, and help them explore the possibility of future APO membership. It will also increase APO’s service impact and develop more leaders to improve local communities.
Student Conference Fund
Sectional, regional, and national conferences provide attendees with opportunities to foster relationships with members from across the country. These events create connections that can last a lifetime.
Conferences help chapters grow through improved membership recruitment and retainment, introduction to new and improved programming, greater understanding of formal meeting procedures, and ongoing communication and engagement with members from other chapters and alumni volunteers.
At conferences, new friendships are forged, networks are built and strengthened, and the value of the brotherhood is reinforced.
Leading the Way will provide funding so more students will be able to take advantage of APO’s conferences.
“APO is a closeknit community of like-minded individuals committed to making a difference in their community and world.”
Jessie A.
Leadership Programming Endowment
Opportunities for national leadership development programs appear rapidly and come with significant costs. APO works to provide training and leadership experiences as inexpensively as possible. Creating an endowment dedicated to leadership programming will ensure that valuable resources are available without worry of having to burden student members with additional expense. This new endowment would also be available for chapters to provide unique leadership development programming.
Leading the Way will create an endowment that, when fully funded, will generate $125,000 a year to be used for leadership programming.
Torchbearer Fund
The Torchbearer Fund, which depends on sustained annual giving from donors, supports APO’s day-to-day operations while keeping student fees reasonable. The fund provides revenue for increased chapter support, member services, communications and leadership programs such as National Service Week, Spring Youth Service Day and APO LEADS, the Fraternity’s national leadership development courses.
Leading the Way will provide three years of funding support for APO’s regular ongoing programs.
Campaign Goals for Leading the Way
With your support, we will be better positioned to meet the challenges of our next 100 years by Leading the Way now.
APO Leadership Institute
$2 million Director, Salary/Benefits (3 years)
Student Conference Fund
Leadership Programming Endowment
Torchbearer Fund
$750,000
$2.5 million
$750,000 Annual support (3 years)
Total Goal $6 million
“The Fraternity is a welcoming and inclusive service organization where you are surrounded with generous and kind people that will grow with
you and be friends for a
lifetime.”
Alex P.
Board of Directors
Melody A. Martin, National President, Delta Alpha ’97, University of Cincinnati
Disraeli W. Smith II, MBA, MPP, National Vice President, Kappa Delta ’07, Florida A&M University
Robert M. Coop, P.E., Tau Omicron ’91, Indiana University Purdue University–Indianapolis
Dr. Hilton Hallock, Alpha Zeta Chi ’10, New England College
Jennifer R. Headman, Ph.D., Omicron Iota ’97, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Fred C. Heismeyer III, Ed.D., Lambda Omicron ’73, West Virginia University
Christopher J. Meschuk, Gamma Theta ’00, University of Colorado at Boulder
Susan Klusmeier, Ed.D.
Jéri L. Ogden, Ed.D., Zeta Phi ’07, Howard University
Candice Solomon-Strutz Alpha Alpha ’01, University Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Bex Takacs-Britz, Alpha Zeta Iota ’09, Grand Valley State University
Kenneth Anthony Tinkler, Esq., B.C.S., Zeta Upsilon ’90, Boston University
Kimberlee Castillo Yee, Alpha Alpha Xi ’83, University of the Paciic
Robert J. London, FASAE, CAE, National Executive Director, Tau Omicron ’02, Indiana University Purdue University–Indianapolis
Jennifer Znosko, J.D., National Legal Counsel, Alpha Phi ’95, Washington University
“I have learned so much about myself, leadership, and service. I am so happy I found APO. It is my family away from family.”
Tatum R.
