Beverly Hoffmann
President/CEO , Center for Social and Economic Leadership
      Beverly Hoffmann studied and lectured at the Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at the New School for Social Research in New York City and was part of the National Society of Fundraising Executives (now AFP) team there that designed the first master’s degree in fundraising management in the country. While a student and later as the J.M. Kaplan Fund lecturer at the New School, she originated a comprehensive, market-based method of strategic organizational planning considered to be a best practice and participated in creating three new methodologies in planned giving that dramatically changed the endowment field.
      Subsequently, she lectured for Seton Hall, Rutgers, Princeton, Georgetown and George Washington (3 years) Universities, Independent Sector, the Council on Foundations, the Foundation Center in Washington, D.C., and for various AFP conferences and mentoring groups. She served as faculty for the AFP’s new Academy of Professional Development at the International Conferences in 1997 and 2004.
      As Founding President of the National Deferred Giving Trust , she participated in original research of new forms and adaptations of deferred giving, which she then taught to insurance companies, stock brokerage houses, banks, certified financial planners, lawyers, and a wide variety of 501(c)(3) organizations through a series of foundation grants over six years. She created the first revolving loan from an investment firm to a charity based on the assets in a charitable remainder unitrust. Ms. Hoffmann also originated the first small-group deferred giving consortia to achieve affordability of endowments and assisted Steven Smallwood in initiating the Philanthropic Services area at Merrill Lynch.
      She counseled the staff of the Governor of New Jersey in creating endowments for public housing and later transferred that knowledge to all of HUD’s Assistant Secretaries, with special emphasis on Community Development. Through HUD, she worked with Assistant Secretary Paul Bardack to design a specialized community foundation in Watts after significant tumult. Also, she trained more than 100 Mayors in the creation of endowments for city governments. Through Deloitte Touch Tohmatsu, Ms. Hoffmann provided consulting to the USAID’s Asia and South America Divisions and contributed significantly to a USAID book on endowment-building for NGOs.
      As Senior Fellow and then Executive Director of the Center for New Leadership, housed at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, she worked with board member Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank and futurist Robert Theobald to provide strategic organizational planning guidance through an international communications systems to a wide range of NGOs seeking to foster small business incubators in their own countries. Other groups to which she has provided similar counsel include FINCA International and the Asia and South America Divisions of the USAID (the latter through Deloitte & Touche). In the USA, she is preparing to work with the New Ventures Initiative in the Midwest.
      From posts as President/CEO, Executive Director, Director of Development, and Senior Consultant, she has served agencies in healthcare, social services, education, housing development, arts, religion, and community foundations through strategic planning, board training and development, nonprofit marketing and fundraising, and nonprofit financial systems design. She has managed annual, capital, high net worth major gift and endowment campaigns; corporate, foundation, and cause marketing initiatives; and government grants & contracts.
      Organizations for which she has worked include the San Francisco, Ahmanson, Prudential, and Skaggs Foundations, Caldwell College, the National VOLUNTEER Center, the National Perinatal Association, Hospice by the Sea, Marble Collegiate Church, The LINKS, Inc. and the LINKS Foundation, the National Academy of Social Insurance, For Love of Children, the McAuley Institute (Sisters of Mercy), the American Public Works Association, and two NIH agencies.
      She managed the capital campaign for the League of Women Voters, originated the planned giving program at the American Association of University Women, and was founding Director of Development for the AARP’s aging research foundation and for the American Society of Association Executives. In 1997, she became Senior Consultant for Strategic Planning and Development for American Benefactor magazine and also consulted to Smith Bucklin, Inc., the national American Red Cross headquarters, the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Lamaze International, FINCA International, the DC Public Library Foundation, the Save-a-Pet Foundation, PCMA, the American Medical Society’s National Patient Safety Foundation.
      She served five months AFP’s Coalition to Uphold Noncash Charitable Giving, which responded challenges to the nonprofit sector posed by Senate Finance Committee proposals. She chaired a subcommittee called Quick Response Team and an Ad Hoc Committee on Major Gifts and Planned Giving.
      Her office is in Alexandria, Virginia.

Betsy Blume, CFRE
Director of Development , Association of Science-Technology Centers
      Betsy Blume has been Director of Development for the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) in Washington, DC since 2003, specializing in corporate sponsorship, endowment building and grant development. ASTC is an organization of science centers and museums dedicated to furthering the public understanding of science among increasingly diverse audiences. She was Director of Fund Development for the Special Libraries Association (SLA) from 1998-2003, tripling corporate sponsorship, quadrupling the annual fund, and increasing all aspects of fund development. As head of several small shops, she has been directly responsible for donor outreach, annual funds, major gifts, planned giving and all aspects of donor stewardship. Before working for SLA, she had over twenty years of development experience as a fundraiser for the American Society of Fundraising Executives Foundation and Director of Alumni Relations for St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. She is currently Vice President for Governance on the board of AFP’s Washington, DC Chapter. She chairs the chapter’s Government Relations Committee, is a member of the AFP Government Relations Committee and participated in the August, 2005 lobbying activities on Capitol Hill organized by AFP and the Alliance for Charitable Reform. She wrote the book Achieving Sponsorship Success, published by ASAE in 2001, and authored several articles on fundraising. She has also presented sessions at ASAE’s Management and Technology conference, the Association Foundation Group, and AFP/DC’s Fundraising Days. She has led roundtables on marketing and fundraising at AFP’s International Conference and SLA’s annual conference, and chaired AFP/DC’s Roundtables program for two years. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, she received her BA from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. She resides in Bethesda with her son.

Sr. Georgette Lehmuth, OSF
President/CEO, National Catholic Development Conference
      Sr. Georgette Lehmuth, OSF has been President/CEO of NCDC since 2001 and served as the administrator of the organization for eight months prior to her permanent appointment. Previously, Sr. Georgette was elected to the Board of Directors of NCDC and served her religious community, the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, as Development Director, Director of Communications, Director of Justice and Peace, Director of On-Going Formation and as a member of the leadership team. She has served on numerous boards and committees for organizations such as NCDC, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), Religious Involved in Social Concerns, Planning Committee of Women Religious Collaborating, Habitat for Humanity, St. Francis Healthcare Centre, Campaign for Human Development, and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Sr. Georgette also has experience in education and administration and is a trained facilitator.

Geoffrey Peters BA, MA, JD
President , Creative Direct Response
      A fundraiser, lawyer, and manager, Geoff has a J.D. degree, as well as an M.A. in social research and statistics. His A.B. degree is from Northwestern University. In addition to practicing law early in his career, he was a faculty member at Creighton University College of Law and at William and Mary’s Marshall Wythe School of Law. In 1980, he was appointed as the youngest president and dean of a major law school in the United States.
      Geoff’s involvement with nonprofit organizations goes back thirty years. In addition to his service as a president, dean and a faculty member at various educational institutions, Geoff has served as Chairman of the nonprofit Mid-America World Trade Center, as a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, as Chairman of the nonprofit Council for Government Reform, and in numerous voluntary roles with the American Bar Association, various State Bar Associations, the Conference of Chief Justices, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (formerly NSFRE), American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation, the DMA Nonprofit Federation, the Direct Marketing Association of Washington Board of Directors, and AFP-DC’s Board of Directors just to name a few.
      Geoff is currently President of Creative Direct Response, a 100% employee owned national fundraising agency located in the DC metropolitan area with more than 25 national nonprofit clients.
      Geoff is an internationally recognized expert on the regulation of nonprofits and their fundraisers in the U.S. and in Europe. As such he has also had very extensive volunteer involvement using his legal expertise on behalf of the nonprofit community. He worked on efforts to secure changes on behalf of the nonprofit community to accounting rules embodied in the AERDO standards and the AICPA SOP 98-2 pronouncements. He has actively worked on reducing the burden of state regulation on nonprofits engaged in fundraising and has taught seminars both for nonprofits, fundraisers and even for state regulators on “smart but not burdensome” regulation. He has been co-counsel or lead counsel in numerous cases on behalf of nonprofits including Aid Association for Lutherans vs. U.S. Postal Service (preserving the rights of nonprofits to use their nonprofit mail permits), the Pinellas I litigation (regarding the rights of out of state fundraisers not to register) and the Pinellas II litigation (reducing the regulatory burden on charities registering to solicit funds).
      In these latter two cases he devoted more than 800 hours toward these legal cases over a five year period, including appeals, and when both cases were decided in favor of the nonprofit community he contributed all of the legal fees awarded to him (well in excess of $100,000) to American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation (“ACFRFR”) a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm for which he serves as pro-bono General Counsel. ACFRFR continues to represent the nonprofit community under Geoff’s guidance and has recently secured victories not through litigation but merely by writing letters to states expressing concerns about burdensome regulation of fundraising.
      Between Thanksgiving of 2002 and January of 2003 Geoff was called upon to lead and organize the filing of Amicus Curiae (“Friend of the Court”) briefs in the Supreme Court of the United States in what became known as the Madigan case. He arranged for the filing of three briefs on behalf of various segments of the nonprofit community and raised funds and secured free legal counsel to support those activities. Geoff himself filed the Supreme Court brief on behalf of the “umbrella” organizations in the nonprofit community including: Association of Fundraising Professionals, Association of Direct Response Fundraising Counsel, Council for Advancement and Support of Education, The Direct Marketing Association and The Direct Marketing Association’s Nonprofit Federation, Direct Marketing Association of Washington, Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association, National Catholic Development Conference, and the National Health Council. He spent more than 350 hours of volunteer time working on this case which resulted in a vindication of nonprofit’s rights in the Supreme Court of the United States.
      In addition to his volunteer legal work Geoff spends a great deal of time as a volunteer teaching fundraising. His teaching credentials include more than eleven years of teaching at the graduate school level, presentations at more than 100 continuing education programs, (he has also published more than 50 articles, book chapters, and monographs on various topics), and regular contributions to courses on fundraising, direct response marketing, the regulation of nonprofit organizations and their fundraisers, etc. He has made more than 40 formal presentations to various gatherings of charities and fundraisers in the past three years alone including: AFP International Conference, AFP-DC Fundraising Days, AFP-NY Fundraising Days, DMFA, DMA-Nonprofit Federation, Philanthropy Monthly, National Federation of Nonprofits, International Fundraising Congress, the National Association of Attorneys General-National Association of State Charity Officials, Charity Channel, Nonprofit Excellence Conference, and others. In March 2001 Geoff was awarded the DMA-Nonprofit Federation’s Public Service Award for his various volunteer efforts on behalf of the nonprofit community. In 2004 he was recognized by the Direct Marketing Association of Washington for his volunteer service.
      As a former college president and in other roles within nonprofits and in service to them, Geoff has been involved in nearly every form of fundraising ranging from capital campaigns to deferred giving, major donor, annual fund, internet, alumni membership and fundraising, government grants and service contracts, corporate sponsorships, special events, cause related programs and, of course, direct response fundraising. Internationally, Geoff has consulted or worked in direct response and other forms of fundraising in nearly 25 countries more than a decade. He has a breadth of knowledge about developing new fundraising programs in multiple markets. He currently works with clients developing integrated fundraising strategies and direct mail fundraising programs for more than 20 NGOs in North America and consulting with international NGOs on new market entry and global marketing strategies.

R. Peter Wolf , Ph.D., CFRE
Development Officer , Points of Light Foundation
      Peter Wolf is at present Government Development Officer at the Points of Light Foundation. After fourteen years as a professor of music in four universities and four years as Production Manager and editor for a scholarly music publisher, Mr. Wolf joined the fundraising profession in 1989. Since then, he has held senior fundraising positions in organizations devoted to arts and culture, social services, long-term healthcare, education, and volunteering, including Planned Parenthood-Essex County (New Jersey), The National Council of Negro Women, the Center for Excellence in Education, Citizen Works, The Network of East-West Women, and Tahirih Justice Center. He received professional certification as a Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) in 1996.
      Of his New York début the reviewer for The New York Times wrote “The harpsichord can seem a genteel instrument, but Peter' Wolf's debut recital… at Carnegie Recital Hall was about as thrilling as gentility can be. With this performance Mr. Wolf established himself as one of the finest harpsichordists before the public today.” Since then, he has performed widely across the United States and abroad both as soloist and as a member of numerous chamber ensembles.
      Mr. Wolf graduated magna cum laude in music from Harvard and received his Ph.D. in music history from Yale. He recently completed a Graduate Certificate in Knowledge Management in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the George Washington University. In his “spare” time, he collects stamps (especially those of Hong Kong) and he and his wife breed champion Cardigan Welsh Corgis.
      As a volunteer, Mr. Wolf has served four terms as treasurer of the Chesapeake Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club. He has recently been asked to serve on a task force for an organization providing services to the visually impaired and has been serving on the Mentoring and Roundtable Committees of the DC Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Jack Siegel
Auto Didactix LLC
      Jack Siegel provides training and consulting services to nonprofits through Charity Governance Consulting LLC. He is a lawyer and a CPA. Jack also holds a Masters in Management from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Business. Jack is the author of A Desktop Guide for Nonprofit Directors, Officers, and Advisors: Avoiding Trouble While Doing Good (John Wiley 2006), a comprehensive guide to the legal, financial, tax and regulatory issues facing charitable organizations.

      If more than a million registered 501(c)(3) organizations would jointly use their legal right to spend a sliding scale of their budgets on advocacy, they COULD protect the nonprofit sector from policymakers who think they are guarding the public's interest but actually are accidentally damaging the livelihood of charities and the public benefits they engender. Six members of the AFP Coalition to Uphold Noncash Giving will discuss the Coalition's intense work in 2005 to shield the (c)(3) community from impending negative tax legislation and will advise you of forthcoming challenges.

Benefits and Learning Objectives

1. Understand the threats to the nonprofit sector from policymakers who think they are guarding the public's interest but actually are accidentally damaging public charities and the public benefits they engender. Know the consequences to each charity.
2. Comprehend the issues that the AFP Coalition to Uphold Noncash Gifts faced in 2005 and how we responded (and will continue to respond) on their behalf.
3. Realize the advocacy issues facing the sector in the future and the responsibility of each public charity to play a role in advancing jointly-supported positions on those issues.
4. Understand the power lying dormant within the charitable sector, if everyone acts together, and take to heart the mission of making the 80-pound weakling into an 800-pound gorilla.