hi everyone my name is Ashley Gatewood I am the
communications and marketing director at CFRE International and I am thrilled that you are along
with us today for this very special presentation just for fundraising Professionals in Australia
and New Zealand about how to become a CFRE we are going to start with some housekeeping really
quickly we are going to take your questions there's a question pane feel free to pop your
questions in there are two question breaks today where I will stop a
nd look at what's in the pain
and we will address those questions together we have an application online that is free to start
if you haven't yet started your application you can begin it at my cf. cfr.org if you would like
to start filling that out while you listen along today that can be great thing to do because you
might hit a question in the application and you can just get it answered by me as we go along
today we are recording today's webinar I will send a link via email out in about
24 hours
along with a link to the slide so you don't have to furiously take notes we will make sure
that you have all of that good information all right so with that said I am going to uh jump
into the slides we are very fortunate that we have Ryan jard with us today we are going to
hear from him in probably about 8 to 10 minutes and then he'll also come back in at the end he
is a Cy in Australia I'll do a proper intro of him shortly but just note that we have Ryan with
us and he will be
sharing some great information with you so to get started about what the cafrey
is we are the only globally recognized accredited certification for fundraisers this is our biggest
point of differentiation there are many wonderful certificate programs that are Australia specific
or there used to be a fundraising certificate for New Zealand different country specific ones but
our certification is global so once you earn it it means the same thing in Japan as Australia as
New Zealand as the UK
as Canada the US anywhere you go the same four letters after your name mean
that you have met the same requirements we've been around for over 40 years we've been in Australia
and New Zealand since the early 90s so we have a couple of people who actually have hit their
30-year Milestone of being CF frees in Australia and New Zealand everything we do is grounded
in ethical best practice fundraising that's what we're here to promote the certification is to
ensure that your fundraising practi
ce aligns with ethical best practices all of us want to believe
that people are are ethical and nonprofits all the time but we know that unfortunately that is
not always the case I worked for nonprofit early in my career in Washington DC where my coworker
stole between. five and million dollar the true amount was never arrived at because it was a very
convoluted kind of scheme that put me personally and professionally on the this path of hearing
a great deal about nonprofits and their ethic
al commitments and their ethical fundraising I
personally I've been with cfer for six years and before this I worked for the fundraising
Institute of New Zealand for three years so it's very near and dear to my heart about ethical
best practice fundraising we have over 7700 seares across more than 25 countries countries
Australia is our third largest market for cfes so the largest market is in the US followed by
Canada followed by Australia this North American presence is heavily because we
were founded in
North America but we have had a growing number of ceries in Australia over the last five six
years that I've been at cfer we have 118 right now and we have we have about a dozen CF frees
in New Zealand we had 20 at one time a number of people retired but we've had uh some new people
becoming cfes earlier in their careers there which is great to see so that number is good for you
because when you have it you will stand out as a professional in your country for going above
a
nd beyond the great thing about the cafre with there being 7700 certificates worldwide is that
it's not something everybody has when you have it you really stand Head and Shoulders above you are
showing your commitment to this profession and to the standards I'll talk a little bit generally
about the benefits of certification in just a broad Viewpoint here A certification why is it
important right you don't want to get your haircut by a hairdresser that doesn't have their license
you don't
want to take your taxes to an accountant who hasn't been certified a certification is
Assurance for the public and employers that you know your stuff that you've demonstrated your
knowledge it's been tested by an exam you've met a certain set of requirements people can put
their faith in you we are accredited by the an national accreditation board which is based
in North America but they have multilateral agreements around the world so um as a result of
that our accreditation is recognized
worldwide so our own program has been found to meet the rigors
required of a solid certification program so you can have faith in us we know what we're doing
when we're certifying a certification is great for you because a certification is created by
making a set of standards for a profession right so in fundraising CFRE we have created a set
of ethical best practice standards that have resulted in an outline of required knowledge this
is through our test content outline which I'll talk abo
ut a little bit later today but a good
certification results in a designation that you can use after your name some people say you know
they became a CFRE in Australia or New Zealand they put CFRE after their name and people said
what does that mean they might not necessarily know what a CFRE is but they'll ask what do these
initials mean many SE frees in that part of the world have told me that it becomes a great entry
point to tell High net worth individuals donors employers what the CFRE
certification stands for
and people go well that's exactly who we want to work with right that's exactly the kind of major
gifts officer we want to work with that's exactly the kind of person we want to hire somebody who is
so serious about best practice ethical fundraising uh certification requires maintenance you don't
just earn it once and sail off into the sunset and say you know what that was fun A certification
requires you to continue learning that is what makes it so valuable I tol
d you the cfre has
been around for over 40 years we actually have two current cfre who earned the designation
in 1981 if they never did another minute of professional development all of us would be
pretty terrified right but because they're cfres we know that they have recertified we know that
their body of knowledge is current there are now nonprofit degrees out there which are absolutely
fabulous because they put a lot of people on the pathway to becoming a cfer there's a very easy
leap
to make from earning a degree in nonprofit management or something related to nonprofits
and fundraising I'll talk about that a little bit more in the application section but credentials
and certifications do have a leg up on degrees because they're Evergreen right so a degree you
do once and it's done I have a masters from 2005 it's horrendously out of date right but your
credential because you're recertifying it stays fresh it shows that times change and you keep up
with them as a cfre in
the cfre community in order to become a cfre you have to agree to abide by the
international statement of ethical principles and fundraising the donor Bill of Rights and our
accountability standards in addition to your local laws why is this important well what's
great about this is because the CFRE process has uh a grievance committee right so the CFRE
community has a grievance committee if you ever are concerned about another CFREs Behavior we have
a way that you can report that it can b
e looked into right very fortunately in my six years at
CFRE that's not really been an issue but we have that mechanism to ensure that people are playing
by the roles right because it's very difficult um sort of within our own countries and our own
professions necessarily to always be able to flag that the benefits of being a CFRE there are many
many uh that people report we do a survey every other year and we ask our CFRE what do you like
about having the credential what is it helping you
with so people tell us it is great because
it signifies their competence right immediately you see these four letters after someone's
name and you know okay this person is serious about fundraising they've gone a above and beyond
they've earned a voluntary credential this person is exactly the kind of person that you want to
work with you want to hire you want to be it also can help you get uh basically a pathway into CFRE
only events if you go to the FIA conference every year they have a f
ellows and CFRE event which is
a wonderful networking opportunity the fundraising Institute of New Zealand conference I know is been
on Hiatus for a little bit but historically they always had a fellows and CFRE event there as well
becoming a CFRE enhances your credibility because it shows that you have met standards and that
you are committed to the profession right just like when you see your accountant with their
certification your board certified doctor right you know okay I have an ass
urance in working with
this person also career advancement I have been to the FIA conference for a few years unfortunately I
didn't make it this year but the last two I had a great opportunity to speak with recruiters there
many of whom said you know we know what the CFRE is when we see it on a candidate CV we really
light up we love to interview CFREs we love to put them forward because we know that they have uh
a very very solid foundation of fundraising behind them if you have your site
set on working overseas
particularly the US and Canada having your CFRE is a real foot in the door many job postings here
say CFRE preferred in them especially for director of development and higher levels so I don't know
what your career aspirations are but if you are considering maybe coming over to the states
or Canada just know that your CFRE carries a lot of weight in these communities all right
so with that you've heard enough from me for a little bit we are now going to hear from Rya
n
who I'm super excited to bring on to talk about the career benefits as he has experienced them
Ryan became a CFRE in March of 2021 so he's got three years under his belt so he's got some good
experience that he can share with you he is also the author of future philanthropy and nonprofit
Moneyball he is currently the head of advocacy for Effective philanthropy um and the founder
or sorry and I that is at minderoo foundation and he is the founder and director of fundraise
for Australia he
not only that but he is our official CFRE Ambassador for Australia so what
that means is Ryan is your person on the ground that can help guide you through the CFRE process
if you have questions so I'm going to go ahead and bring up Ryan's slide and he is going to take
it away and talk to you a little bit about the career benefits yeah thanks Ashley and thanks for
the opportunity here to speak uh yeah I also got recertified this year so um obviously a uh you
know a reup as it were and to mo
ve to minderoo and be like on the funders side uh a lot of people
ask why you want to continue this accreditation I said it was important for a number of reasons
uh being an effective philanthropy understanding how we give our money and the issues around uh
Pay What It Takes uh and a number of the other issues that we have seen kind of entrenched into
our social sector even fundraisers being seen and how we kind of carve out space for them I think
it's an important designation uh to have an
d sends a a message to to the field that minderoo
is definitely looking at how our fundraisers operate as we look to double giving by 2030 as
the government said but I digress um in terms of cfre look this this has been a game changer for
my whole career I mean was get cut to the chase I wouldn't have been able to come back to Australia
from the US um I wouldn't have been able to get the jobs I it was um privileged to work in in the
US if I didn't have my CFR it really opened the door uh to
have those interviews and discussions
about how I could make an impact it definitely showcases best practice and professionalism um
again in a largely self-regulated industry uh this commitment is extremely important um When
we struggle each day to really convey what we do internally to our leadership and board and
externally uh to the organizations that we're seeking funding from even the donors uh that we
again go out and uh discuss what they um giving might look like their legacy Etc ag
ain it just
shows a commitment to best practice and I think I should have underlined that slide there because
I think that's um goes largely to what Ashley's conveyed as well um it's a accountability as well
so globally accepted standards helps lift up our field here and as you a lot of you would know
we've got the productivity commission doing a national inquiry into our field the Department
of Social Services create a new not for profit blueprint so again um we are in a spot where
we're
not seen in the space there is no data around fundraising in Australia except for um
what we have with the CFRE when you give your tax return uh there's no way to put in that you're a
fundraiser in fact there's no way to uh share that your position Works in a not for profit anyway so
working on that so being a CFRE is really leading the charge there and again just uh the commitment
to Excellence uh ethics and shared values I did the CFRE because it espouses how I want to
approach the work u
m I want to build resources in a way that um does stand up uh to I guess that
torch of um a lot of your gift uh processing uh gift agreement uh folks do when you're trying to
make sure the money is given out uh in the way that the donor expects so all these things give
you the skills the background the knowledge uh to move forward effectively so um yeah in terms of
career benefits this is the thing this is what you want to do and um the 118 um folks in the field uh
you know that that is a r
eally small number and we can do more and be more and that that and that
there is a lot of jobs going around so that's a simple equation there so hopefully that helps on
again the career benefits there Ashley excellent thank you so much for that Ryan I am also going to
just put through the chat there the link if you do want to start your application follow along with
me um if you have any questions for Ryan you can also put them in the question Pane and when we
have our question breaks we c
an Ryan's mind is a person who has had the CFRE for three years so
thank you so much Ryan and we will hear from you a little bit later all right so speaking with
your employer over 50% of CFRE tell us in our survey so we do a survey every other year to
our entire certificant body that uh so over 50% report that their employer has contributed to
part or all of their initial certification fee making a case to your employer may or may not
be easy depending on what their professional developmen
t budget is their culture of continuous
learning but I always say it's worth having the conversation you know how to time conversations
you're an expert at asking for support this can be a great way that your employer can invest
in your knowledge it's third-party validation right it's not just you saying I know this it's
a globally recognized body that is attesting yes you are an expert in this you can add it to Grant
applications and donor conversations you know what a great Steward of fun
ds what a great Steward
of relationships ethics and accountability are never going to go out of style right at least
in good organizations so that's a great case that you can make to your employer because if you
haven't measured your knowledge against globally accepted ethical best practices you may be doing
something that's not totally by the book but not out of any bad motivation it's just you haven't
assessed your knowledge at that point right so a lot of people say that the cfre process
even
preparing for the exam doing the education for the requirements bolstered their confidence and
they were learning a lot along the way that they got to put into practice even before they became
a cop Frey so there are a lot of benefits to this to become a cfre first you complete a Symetra
application and I'm going to talk to you about the three main application segments in a few
minutes here we then review your application then once it's approved you are sent an
email with instruction
s on how to book your exam you will make your exam appointment
once you pass the exam you are a CFRE that's all there is to it so an application and
an exam I'm a little broken record here but start your application for free there
is no downside to it the application is looking at your accomplishments in the last
five years so we're going back to January 1 2019 the application itself will not expire
so if you created an application a year or two ago you haven't gone into it we still have
i
t you can just log in you don't need to start from scratch you can fill it out over however
long it takes you to fill it out essentially you don't have to fill it out in one sitting by
any means the first segment of the application is education this is where you are going to
enter in education that you've participated in this application works on a point system
and I'm not going to go down a whole Rabbit Hole of points we'll just kind of look at it at a
a easy to to understand top level bec
ause inside the application it spells out all of the point
values right there so I won't uh rehash that here but what's great about this application is
that you will put in the education that you have attended that's fundraising related if you
present you can also enter that if you say Ashley I hate talking in front of people there's
no way I'm going to present that's 100% fine it's not required it's just if you do you get points
one thing people love about this application is they attend f
undraising education and they put it
in their application right straight away they log it so they don't forget it when it comes time
for your annual review you can go into your C fre application and you've kept track of all the
education you've gone on so you can say to your boss during your annual review well you know
I went to two conferences and I did 16 hours of webinars right so you can make a case for
you know more professional development funds while you're poised and ready for promo
tion that
kind of thing but people love this application because it's a natural repository of where
you can store all of your great education accomplishments which you can use um and leverage
for yourself even outside of the cfre process so fundraising education we accept pretty much most
varieties of it the big ones are conferences web ARS workshops master classes panel discussions
roundtables all of those good things are going to count we can also take up to 10 points of
nonffundraising
education so this has to be something relevant to your job you know people
love to submit stuff like yoga for fundraisers which sounds really nice but it's not going to
qualify because we need to see that it actually is going to contribute to your fundraising success
so thank like Finance classes maybe a webinar on leadership if you ever do a public speaking course
these are the kinds of things that we're looking at like I said we are going back to January 1
2019 if you did education before
today which I'm sure a lot of you have done you want to jog
your memory about what you attended a great way to do that is to go through your calendar people
run searches on their email inbox they get their receipts from conference registrations uh credit
card statements you know whatever might help you jog your memory because you're probably sitting on
a lot of points you don't have to start this from square one because we're looking at what you've
done from January 1 2019 forward if you h
ave an academic degree this is the one thing that can be
outside that five-year timeline any year any major if you have a Bachelor's of French literature from
2012 it will count any year any major if you don't have an academic degree that's completely fine
it's not required but just know that if you have one we can award points for it you can also earn
points through service learning this is our term for volunteering if you volunteer in a general
role or if you volunteer on a committee or b
oard that's all going to count this also includes
volunteering at your Children's School at your place of worship the volunteer commitment does not
have to run 12 months of the year many volunteer commitments are short-term we understand that
if you do a beach Cleanup in the summer for two months that's fine right that it doesn't have to
run all year long if you're like Ryan and you're a prolific author or maybe you're just dipping
your tow into authoring on fundraising topics we can also a
ward you points for that uh cannot be
self-published and it must be a 500w minimum there are all kinds of qualifying education types I'm
sure you are a person with a lot of points right now a lot of people say to me I started filling
out the application and then I realized how many points in education I had and I thought oh my gosh
I'm almost at the threshold I may as well submit it and uh get the show on the road and take my
next professional step so just know there are all kinds of ways t
hat you can earn those points now
one of the things that's really great about our application is that we have a lot of information
right at your fingertips FIA are amazing they submit a lot of their conferences their different
uh education Ventures their certificate to us so that it is prepopulated in the application uh
this means is if you attended these you were participating you just go into the application
and you see on the left side those red letters that say education from approved p
roviders
you simply type FIA or fundraising Institute Australia in that box it'll populate up and then
a drop- down menu will show for what FIA has run and had pre-approved for cfree education if you've
been on their conferences going back 2019 forward right it's these points are right there for you
so you just select them you'll be good to go you don't have to go back through your calendar and
reconstruct everything all right and good news if you are a member of fundraising Institute New
Zealand they also have a number of their trainings and offerings also pre-populated in here so if
you attended any of those you can just locate them and it is a breeze to get them added to your
application if you're looking for fundraising education you can check out my education finder
we have this available on our website if you go to ca free.org at the top there's a little
menu it says my education finder in there we have offerings from Australian providers I
know changing company has a
number of offerings that you can learn about through there if you do
blackbaud's Raiser's Edge training that qualifies so there are a number of opportunities at your
fingertips if you are looking for Education uh some of it in my education finder is paid some
of it is low cost and some of it is free have a look there the second piece of the application is
professional practice which means you working in a paid professional fundraising role the requirement
is that you need to have worked 36
months in the last five years in a paid professional fundraising
role we're going back again January 1 2019 if you have worked for three years since that time
pat yourself on the back you have met this requirement if you work 40 hours a week at least
50% of your duties and responsibilities need to be fundraising related if you do marketing half the
time and fundraising half the time that's all good but we do need to have at least 50% fundraising
related if you work 20 hours a week 100% of t
hat must be fundraising related easy breezy our third
requirement here is professional performance this is you raising funds or showing your impact I'm
going to explain the two ways that we have that you can meet the requirements in this section so
firstly because we're accredited our accrediting body uh has a requirement right that we need to
show that people are able to fund raise so the requirement is to have raised the equivalent of
1.375 million US dollar in the last five years that nu
mber might sound High depending on where
you are but I will break it down for you the application has a currency converter in it and the
reason why this is in US dollars is because we're accredited the accrediting body does not allow us
to have one amount for New Zealand one amount for Australian dollars one amount for taibat one
amount for Euro and so on we're only allowed to have one and that's to show that everybody has
not that standard right so we're going back again January 1 2019 but
the really good news is that
we recognize fundraising as a team sport it can be really difficult when you're on a team project
that's brought in funds to you know people get all in their head about parsing that out so let's
say you are a bequest fundraiser you close a $3 million gift that gift comes in right that's
you that's all you that's perfect you put that in your cfre application but there are a number
of things Direct Mail pieces digital fundraising campaigns gas things like that wh
ere you are more
than likely working with other people in your team right so let's take this example of aala if
you were one of the team members one of the three people on that team and that Gala brought
in $250,000 you would claim that for yourself each person on that team would be able to claim
that $250,000 if they worked on it because things like gas can be very difficult right because there
could be quite a mix of how that money is coming in you might have two people working together o
n
an Ask stuff along those lines so no know that if it's something like a DM piece like I said a
digital fundraising campaign an event a run walk all of that where there's like a real team effort
from your organization we recognize that and that is how you will count the funds if you're in a
smaller organization or you want to just use this alternative avenue to meet this requirement it is
open to you this is Communications and management projects so this will satisfy the professional
perf
ormance requirement as well a project just it sounds obvious but I'll go over it it just has to
have a start and an end date and a stated purpose or goal hitting send on your weekly e newsletter
every Friday that's not a project right that's your job that's what you do but a project would
be if you overhauled your newsletter end to end you redesigned it you changed your calls to action
you changed the day you send it on and now it's bringing in 12% more donations year-over-year
that's a pro
ject so that's a good way to think about it we have a lot of examples on our website
there's a very good chance that you have completed some of these in the last five years and you've
got some points just sitting there waiting all right so the initial certification cost is $700
us if you are an FIA fins or educate plus member one of the benefits of being a member of these
organizations is that they give you this 20% discount like I said 50% of CFREs over 50% have
said that their employer co
ntributed a part or all of the cost some people cost share they do
5050 some people say to their employer they cut a deal they say I will pay this upfront when I
pass the exam I want to be reimbursed we've had a number of people use that Avenue it's a great
motivator to study even more thoroughly but it also can help your employer feel a little bit more
at ease if you are not a member of those three organization one of those three organizations the
rate is $875 it's an all-inclusive fee whi
ch means that includes us reviewing your application all
the testing fees so when it comes time to take the exam you're not going to pay to book at the
exam site it's us sending a digital badge when you become a CFRE so you can announce to your
network on LinkedIn and Twitter that you're a fresh CFRE plus it includes us mailing the hard
copy certificate to you anywhere in the world so there's no additional fee if you're in Australia
or New Zealand your fee that you've paid for the initial c
ertification covers Us sending that
certificate to you wherever you are all right so we are now going to look at how the exam is
created I know a lot of people have trepidation about the exam I want to be your Sensei so that
you feel comfortable and confident the number one thing I can tell you is that this exam is on
your chosen profession right this is what you do multiple days a week you have at least three years
experience behind you before you take the exam you are smart you are Savvy
you are committed you a
person that goes extra mile you are a lifelong learner right so you are going to think about
this exam hopefully in a way that doesn't feel scary but it's a great way for you to fortify
your fundraising knowledge and make sure that you don't have any gaps so the exam questions
apply no matter where you are so if you're in Rotorua if you're in randwick if you're in Rio
anywhere in the world the questions are going to apply to you it's not an American exam it's not
a
North American exam it is a truly Global exam we refresh some of the questions every year that's
to keep it current with fundraising best practices but also for exam security the language of the
exam it's Universal terms we don't make up our own nomenclature we don't pick terms out of the air
we are using terms that are globally recognized the way the exam is created is designed so that
when you study for it it's going to lift your fundraising knowledge and this is why a lot of
people say o
kay when I was studying for the exam I learned things that I could turn around and put
into practice in my department before I even took the exam right I'm learning as I'm going it's
been a great motivator it's keeping me on track for that the way the exam is created is every five
to seven years we run a global job task analysis where we ask fundraising professionals which
fundraising tasks they perform how often they perform them and how critical they are to their
fundraising success this
was last run in 2022 we had respondents from 21 countries including
Australia and New Zealand and we had thousands and thousands and thousands of people respond
to this the is important because this ensures the exam is relevant we are asking you things
that you need to know we're not an exam that was created in 1999 and it never gets refreshed
and you're going oh geeez like this is all old hat right your prep for this exam is to help
you be a better fundraiser today knowing what fundraisers
need to know right now in this moment
to be successful in the role the exam is divided into six knowledge domains that you see here on
your screen we are very very transparent about what the exam covers this job task analysis has
found for many years that these knowledge domains are key to a fundraisers success you'll see that
securing the gift and relationship building so we have the number of questions in the one column
the percentage of the exam and the other securing the gift and relat
ionship building make up over
half the exam these are critical to your success as a fundraising professional right because
if you can't secure gifts and if you can't relationship build you're going to have very
limited success so the preparation for this exam is designed heavily to help you fortify and
strengthen your knowledge across these six domains but especially in these two critical spaces we
have a test content outline on our website this is the road map of the exam for you it's a PD
F
I always say print it off highlight everything you don't feel confident you can answer an exam
question in or that you haven't directly worked in yourself that will be your personal study plan
road map that's going to be where you need to focus your time if you're an expert in volunteer
management you're probably not going to spend much time there right if you've been doing that
for for 20 years you want to use this time to study to address any gaps in your fundraising
knowledge we have
a resource reading list we don't have one book that we say you have to read we know
people like to pick their own books these are four comprehensive books that you see here on your
screen that are from the resource reading list you may have one of these maybe your co-worker has
one of these your library has one of these I'm all about doing everything as cheaply as possible so
you've got four fabulous options here if you want to just buy one book and consider that done when
you read whicheve
r book you've selected you're going to think about what you highlighted on that
test content outline that's going to be where your major areas of focus are going to be that's where
you're going to spend extra time you're going to take handwritten notes because they mentally stick
better than highlighting passages and this is going to be how you will confidently prepare for
the exam we have other resources available to you to help you the third one here is the glossary
this is on our website
as a PDF it's free this is the language of the exam I told you it's in
universally understood terms this glossary is what you want to familiarize yourself with you do not
have to memorize any of the definitions on it not at all we don't expect you to memorize definitions
but get familiar and you'll you'll look at it and you'll be okay I understand these terms and that
will help you feel more confident and ready when you come to the exam we do offer a practice exam
it is a paid product you
don't have to buy it if you don't want to spend the money I totally get it
I just want you to know that it's available to you this has a bank of 320 questions some of them are
retired off old cfre exams it is a sub subcription which means that you can take it as much as you
want within 30 days it's $59.95 people like this one if it's been a while since they took a test
so that they can kind of just get back into like okay how do I get into this state of thinking but
it's also very useful if
the highlighting on the test content outline is not feeling good for you
if you doubting yourself well I don't know I think I know this but I mean do I know this it's been
a couple years since I worked in this do I think I know what I think I know the practice exam
will help you determine that definitively we also have a study guide again it's another paid
item you don't have to use if you don't want to it's $49.99 it's available on Amazon it is a good
resource if you like an old school wo
rkbook style right so it's got practice questions space to
inventory or knowledge a lot of good info if you just like to have everything in one hard copy
book form if you're an FIA member good news there is a free FIA study group for people pursuing
their CFRE it started on February 26th but you can jump in now um there's a couple sessions left
they uh I believe are running it again later this year if you want to be kept in the loop on that
email training@fia.org.au like I said it's free it
is virtual so there's no reason not to do it even
if you're maybe just contemplating the CFRE if you want to jump into it because it's going to just
help you feel prepared plus people love this study group because they get to meet other people and
grow their Network it's awesome for that when you take the exam I'm going to show you in Australian
Zealand the testing center uh information so Pearson view is our partner in Australia and
New Zealand and globally they administer the exam hop ov
er to pearsonvue.com CFRE type in your
postal code it will populate a map I've done this one for Sydney you'll see that there is a map with
the little flags of where their test centers are there's also a list of all the locations so
you will know exactly where you can take the exam if you're in New Zealand what I love about
Pearson Vue is they're everywhere they're even in Invercargill right they're everywhere so if you're
in New Zealand there are a number of test centers available to you a
gain you can see the map on the
right and the list on the left the structure of the exam is that's multiple choice great news for
you because the correct answer is staring back at you there are no open-ended question questions
there are no essay questions there are four answer options per question and you are selecting
the best practice the best advice I can give you on the exam is to remember that this exam is not
asking you how you fundraise at your organization right sometimes people go
I need to answer these
questions for how my department fundraises this is about the best practice globally accepted best
practice and it may not necessarily be what your department does and that's not to say that you
don't want to follow best practices right it could be because you have an executive director
who insists that you do something a certain way it could be because right now you're revamping
your fundraising and you're going to tighten it up and make it more efficient and ensure t
hat
it follows these best practices but that's still in process when you look at at these questions
you are looking for the best answer of the best practice you have four hours to take the exam and
one of my favorite facts in this whole webinar is that this is not a 4-Hour exam most people finish
in two hours and 45 minutes we give you ample time we want to set you up for a very good test taking
experience you can move backwards and forwards in the exam you can fly questions to come back to
later you are able to take a 10-minute break so that you can use the restroom take medication have
a snack we want you to be comfortable refreshed and to come to this with a clear mind we want
to set you up for passing right so we give you plenty of time on the exam the exam score range
is 200 to 800 with 500 as the pass Mark what's great about this you don't have to have a perfect
score right even your doctor when they took their medical board licensed or exam right they didn't
have to h
ave a perfect score you don't have to have a perfect score so just keep that in mind so
as people get really freaked out and they think oh my gosh when I take the exam and there's
two questions I'm sure I don't know I'm gonna just be really in a bad situation there is not
a need for you to be perfect on this all right we're going to look at a practice together
this question does not appear on the live exam will give you an understanding of what
I mean when I say it's a globally applicable q
uestion so you'll see that if you were in
Singapore or you were in Tasmania or you were in the Chatham Islands no matter where
you are this is going to apply when a donor wishes to make a planned gift SL bequest to
the endowment fund the fundraising officer should first one offer to contact the donor's
Financial organization and advisor two explore what the donor wishes to accomplish with the
gift three identify and share with the donor the organization's future needs or four
introduce the
donor to various plan giving options you don't have to tell me your answer
but I'll give you a few seconds to get it in mind all right and the correct answer is number
two this is the ethical best practice you allow the donor to lead with their philanthropic
intent right you don't steer them towards a fund you don't put them in a direction of the new
thing you are letting them guide where they want their philanthropy to have an impact to become a
ceree you recertify every three years there
is no no exam once you pass the exam you're done with
it the cost is $48 us for FIA fins and educate Plus members a number of people who become a
CF free will actually build this into their next employment agreement let's say you become
a cfre you get a fabulous job offer you know that in 3 years you will need to recertify you
can ask ask will you pay for this it is a great litmus test of your potential future employers
interest in professional development but it is something very worthwhi
le asking for and a
number of people do this it's all done by an online application and it's you uh $510 us
at the full rate all right so with that we are going to bring back Ryan and he is going to give
you his CFRE advice don't forget if you have any questions for me or for Ryan put them through
the Q&A we will look at them with uh the last few minutes of the webinar so Ryan welcome back
and take yeah thank you uh obviously some great advice there Ashley which I'm totally gonna
Riff on s
o uh as she mentioned St application is probably number one uh if you kind of wait to
get all your ducks in a row you going to run out of time um the best thing to do is open up a
application now and start adding all the great things that you're doing in there um as actually
said at the end of the year you can actually show it for all the the work you've been doing you
know your um commitment to continued learning um and really just being the best fundraiser
you can be so again it ends up b
eing like a your own like pep talk at the end of the year
especially when you're looking at uh new jobs Etc so application you'll be surprised at how
great a fundraiser you are we're in a very lonely profession so having those reaffirmations
coming from ourself are pretty important uh join a study group this um I took my exam um well in
2015 the first one I'd just been in the space for um three years and that's when they change
it to um that's when you could kick it off and um hang on two s
econds I'm getting accosted by a
ton of birds so let me just show them hang on two seconds all right well while Ryan is doing that oh
great Ryan Perfect all right this is the strangest presentation I've been a part of soly because I'm
in camber at the foot of Mount ay so it's either [ __ ] or other things but um that's uh I guess
always keeping me on my toes but yes please join a study group uh very important as I said uh I
did my exam at the first uh instance and took it all wrong I looked
at a different textbook
uh I thought I knew it or was very young and Brash and um did the CFRE at the Lily School of
philanthropy and thought that that would carry through so um definitely uh make a plan every
fundraiser is different every person is different your approaches um I'm dyslexic so I I found out
pretty late in my career so I decided during co uh that I really wanted to take my CFRE again I
thought I was ready I was prepared and the first uh I did the study group a great one wit
h Jack
Alotto again the virtual components are really helpful um a lot of these study groups actually um
just curate this amazing peer learning experience and people take their exams at different times so
knowing that someone's uh achieved it and become cfre really injects some uh enthusiasm into the
room and know that you're kind of in the right place at the right time um so the study group
also sends kind of sample questions little uh snapshots um in between the sessions during the
week
uh so they're they're great and I can't um you know I can't speak highly enough of them and
learn the exam as um as she said it's a multiple choice the answer is there um is there staring you
in the face uh and if you read the question uh it will help you answer and I kind it sounds ironic
right but um there is Nuance in those questions so don't look at it through your experiences look
at it through the experience uh and learnings from the text and one thing I did when I walked into
the exa
m is I wrote at the top of the page donor Centric that's really the the hook there and you
would have seen from the sample question as well while there's two that will kind of scream at you
that these could be the right answers always go to the donor Centric one there and uh the only
time I've seen people uh fail in the exams is on exam day uh they haven't uh fully committed
to the day because it can be quite exhausting a 4our exam so going in there with plenty of time
to go in get comforta
ble and um take it head on you you know all the answers so you again you
you're doing great work you are nothing changes this exam you are a great fundraiser and I again
I failed my first time by one question uh then had 10 years more experience took it again and only
passed by one question and uh something uh some um person U that was mentoring me at the time
said look all you have to do is get 50 plus one uh anything more is showing off so again uh just
know the work and know once you pas
s the exam you can go on and really do uh great things with that
credential so yeah I'd say that that's the advice uh just get stuck in in there um it's uh it's an
important piece of work but a very rewarding piece of work too thank you so much Ryan that's great
advice good motivation to get going all right so we've got one more slide and then we'll go to
the Q&A as I said before we have a CFRE ambassador program Ryan is a cfre Ambassador in Australia if
you want to get connected to him for
mally through the program you can email me at share@cfre.org
I'll connect you and he will be glad to guide you through that process all right so now we are
going to go to the Q&A feel free to drop whatever you want into their this is your chance to get
a live answer we have had one question come in about if you fail your exam what does it cost to
redo it and how long of a period do you have to do okay great question I do want to just start off
and say I know a lot of people before they begi
n their application or submit it get very nervous
about the exam if you study 40 to 80 hours that's what we've found recently in recent years is a
real sweet spot for people passing really commit to it don't cut Corners I've seen people say I
didn't pass the exam I mean people have come up to me at conferences and say I didn't pass the
exam and I've said how have you studied and I've had more than one person say I don't have time
to study I didn't study it will require studying if you are u
nsuccessful on the exam there is a
30day wait period before you can take it again and that is so you can have time to prepare right
we don't want people to just like turn around the next day and do it there is a $375 us retake fee
and nobody wants to pay that right we want you to be successful and take the studying seriously
the first time every year some people um there are people who prepare and they don't pass but
we also have people who just rock up to the test center and think I'm a ge
nius and it doesn't
necessarily work out for them so take Ryan's great advice about join a study group that keeps
you on track keeps you accountable I put jack alotto's email address through the chat so he is
based in California but he's incredibly responsive he will be more than happy to connect with you
and um give you some great tips and advice there there uh is a question about attending different
uh webinars where you can get your C free points and I'm going to put a link through the c
hat for
you but basically if you go to FIA webinars Fin's webinars blackbaud webinars changing company
webinars but that are on fundraising topics you're going to be earning those points super
quick that is the online learning has just been such a Game Changer for people to get those
points so you can do that if you go to the FIA conferences all of those good things I just
put them my education finder URL through there bookmark that link one thing I love about it too
is if you look at that
test content outline and you're like oh geez you know what I am like way
way out of shape on bequests you can just go in my education finder look for bequest webinars or
in-person trainings and take those towards your points while building your knowledge towards
an area that you need to study up on anyway so I mean it's a great resource the um another
questions come in I love this question you mentioned published works of at least 500 Words
as the minimum for authoring does this include bl
ogs white papers or just books it unfortunately
does not include blogs and it does not include self-published material but let's say you have
an article that runs in the FIA newsletter pro bono Australia um you know something there that is
going to count so those are are great ways to earn those points through authoring while also Jing up
your CV right because everyone loves to have that little publication line on their CV all right
well it looks like we've answered the questions I just wan
t to thank you all so much for being
with us today I love Australia and New Zealand fundraisers this is one of my favorite webinars
of the year to do so it's just uh been a real privilege and an honor to have you with us I want
to thank Ryan for all of his fabulous information in about 24 hours you will receive an email from
share@cfre.org aka me you will have a link to the recording and to the slides so I wish you all big
gifts and a wonderful rest of your week take care
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