May marks the kickoff of the FY24 CFA Society Business Planning & Operating Standards (BPOS) process. Last month’s update gave an overview on the state of the organization and what’s on the horizon at CFA Institute. This Executive Update builds on that foundation and focuses on the ways societies can consider their strategies through the lens of the business planning process.
The FY24 BPOS process will take us one step further into implementing the Society Operating Model. In line with our differentiation strategy, we have adjusted the single business plan template into distinct versions for each segment. The templates reflect the applicable service standards and, given the range of capacity and market opportunities in the network, right-size the reporting and performance requirements. You can log in to Society Center to access the relevant template.
Business planning provides an opportunity to consider the big picture, discuss your society’s future with your boards, and tell the story of who you are as a society. Your business plans help us aggregate your individual stories into a larger narrative that illustrates the collective impact of the CFA Society network, and how you are working towards our shared goals and mission. Your plans also help us identify where things are working well and where additional resources, support, or information is needed to be successful.
Read on to understand the enhancements we’ve made to this year’s business planning process so you have the information you need to successfully hold planning discussions and submit your plan by the 31 July deadline.
FY24 Business Plan Overview
Service Standards Summary
As we’ve done in the past, we’ve aligned business planning to CFA Institute strategic objectives. These are reflected in the Service Standards:
- Shaping the future of the industry and profession
- Offering and promoting a diverse portfolio of learning products
- Building community and providing member value
- Ensuring excellence in society governance and operations
Note that, as a reflection of our differentiated approach, your template will reflect only the service standards that apply to your society. This should make the process less cumbersome, especially for Local and Member Societies.
This Service Standards Summary section indicates the minimum requirements to meet the standards and gives you a space to capture a summary of “how and what” you plan to do to meet the standards. A separate section is included for you to indicate your success metrics and KPIs. Preview a sample Service Standards Summary section, in this case for Professional Associations, here.
Business Plan Executive Summary
This section of the template gives you an opportunity to share a short description of your society's strategy and progress towards completing the service standards. Here, you can tell your story and allow us to better understand the scope and context for your local objectives and initiatives, and where your Board is focusing its attention this year.
The Executive Summary is best completed by someone in a role with the most comprehensive view of your society’s plan for the year ahead—likely a president or CEO/executive director. You can see a preview of this section here.
Budget and Glossary
To improve the consistency of reporting income and expenses across the entire network, we have added a glossary that defines terms included in the Budget worksheet. Click here for a preview of the glossary.
The Budget worksheet should look familiar, as it remains largely unchanged from prior years. Open text field and comment sections in the worksheet allow you to include additional context or other items not captured in the list of income and expenses. A preview of the Budget worksheet can be found here.
Examples of Activities Aligned to Society Service Standards
Our experience in collecting information on activities aligned to the service standards has surfaced a common theme—often, societies don’t realize that the activities and initiatives they’re already undertaking to serve their candidates and members in fact already align with our strategy and reflect the society service standard requirements!
To give you concrete examples of the various ways you can contribute to advancing our mission through the service standards, we have developed a list of sample activities your society can pursue. Many of these use readily-available, existing resources that your society can customize for your market. We invite you to explore the Society Service Standards Reference Guide on Society Center and see how you can use the ideas as a jumping off point for the initiatives that make sense for your market.
And although we are happy to provide you with some of our own examples, you need not look further than the society network to be inspired by what’s possible. I urge you to draw inspiration from the ways other societies in the network are making an impact on investment communities around the world:
Read about the achievements of FY22 Society Awards Programme winners:
Submitting Your Report
We ask Local Societies and Member Societies to send their reports to the Society Support Center. Professional Association and Global Financial Center societies can email their completed report directly to their relationship manager. FY24 business plan templates will be due by Monday, 31 July.
We will then refine the FY23 year-end report based on the business plans. Year-end reports are due within four months of your society’s fiscal year-end.
My team and I look forward to seeing what you have planned!
May Board Meeting Dispatch
At the May meeting, the CFA Institute Board of Governors expressed their support of a focus on membership. The Board recognized additional opportunities to support member growth and retention through the activities of other business divisions—whether through the content being created in Research, Advocacy, and Standards, through our event offerings, or through professional learning opportunities. We will go back to the Board in July with additional recommendations and more holistic business plans for the membership strategy.
On the societies side, there was robust discussion about the Society Operating Model, and Presidents Council Chair Jennifer Garbowicz, CFA, CIPM, presented the results of the Society Sentiment Survey to great interest. Look for the survey results and detailed Board notes to be distributed to the network in the coming weeks.
In the mainland of China, CFA Institute accepts CFA charterholders only.
CREDENTIALING AND CANDIDATE SUPPORT
Level I Candidate Support FAQs
With the opening of February 2024 registration came the rollout of significant changes to the CFA Program. We have developed a new set of FAQs to ensure Level I candidates registered for the February 2024 and later exams are receiving uniform information and support when considering how to begin preparing for exam day. The document provides responses about creating a study plan, using Practice Packs, navigating the Practical Skills Modules, and more. Access the FAQs on Society Center
ETHICS AND RESEARCH, ADVOCACY, AND STANDARDS
New RAS Report to Be Published This Week
Look for the newest publication to come out of Research, Advocacy, and Standards later this week! The report, Gen Z and Investing: Social Media, Crypto, FOMO, and Family, developed in partnership with the FINRA Foundation and Zeldis Research, surveys the attitudes, preferences, and motivations for investing among Gen Z investors. The report and a social media toolkit will be distributed in the next Weekly Connexion.
PROGRAMS AND EVENTS
Upcoming Webinars
Check out our webinar lineup and register for our a new Private Market Series and Data Science for Investment Professionals Certificate Overview sessions. Look for more information and toolkits for these offerings in the coming weeks.
SOCIETY GOVERNANCE
PCR Elections
Voting in the six subregions holding Presidents Council Representative (PCR) elections wrapped up last week. This week, the Nominating Committee will verify the results, and we will announce the elections winners the week of 29 May.