This month’s Executive Update centers on reflections from recent SLCs and learnings from the 2022 Society Partnership Effectiveness survey.
We have just wrapped up the EMEA Society Leadership Conference (SLC) in Vienna, held two short weeks after the AMER SLC in Boston.
Thank you to the representatives who joined us, provided their candid feedback, and participated in honest discussions to advance our partnership. We want you to return to your society feeling equipped with the information and resources you need to envision not only what the rest of the fiscal year will look like but also how the Society Operating Model will shape our relationship in the long term.
These SLC and Society Operating Model-related resources and opportunities are available to our societies:
I am so looking forward to seeing our representatives in APAC next month as we conclude our 2022 regional SLCs.
2022 Partnership Effectiveness Survey
Although we have collected data on the satisfaction of each of our societies for more than 10 years, we are now in our second year of administering a survey that better focuses on a more strategic metric: the effectiveness of our partnership. To help us gauge this, the 2022 Partnership Effectiveness Survey centered around the following themes:
- The current quality of the partnership between your society and CFA Institute.
- Elements of our Principles of Partnership that are working well, and those that need our joint attention.
- Elements most important to your society’s success, and whether you feel you have the resources and information you need to be successful.
- Emerging issues or key priorities that we may not have previously heard.
- The effectiveness of our communication with the society network.
The survey was open from 19 July to 31 August and gathered both quantitative and qualitative feedback for these questions. Thank you to more than 220 society leaders and staff members across 105 of our societies for sharing your perspectives. Although there is still work to be done, we hope you’ll see that we have already begun to address some of your feedback, not only through the development of the Society Operating Model and the overall strategy at CFA Institute but also through tactical efforts.
The Data & What We Heard
Overall, we observed much of the data was on par with the responses collected from the 2021 survey, with some slight shifts. We learned that about 58% of those who responded believe the quality of partnership between their society and CFA Institute is positive (defined as a 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale); for comparison, this is down slightly from last year’s total of 65%.
Those who were neutral in their rating of our partnership accounted for approximately 32% of respondents, against the nearly 30% who were neutral last year. This indicates that, as we progress through pandemic-related disruptions, continue to pursue our strategic objectives, and develop and evolve the Society Operating Model, many are still taking a “wait-and-see” approach before evaluating the relationship further.
When looking at the data through a regional lens, we observed that our APAC and EMEA societies rated the quality of our partnership higher (on a scale of 1 to 5) than did our AMER societies.
What’s Working Well
Consistent with last year’s results, the top responses to the question about which elements in our Principles of Partnership are working best include the following:
- We hold ourselves to the highest standards of ethics and professionalism and protect and enhance the global reputation of the brand.
- We respect our independence and value our interdependence; we are stronger together.
- We share a vision.
Similar themes were reflected in the open comments—more than 75% of those comments cited support from Society Relations managers and CFA Institute staff as elements that are working well in our partnership.
We are delighted to see your alignment with the overall mission and vision of CFA Institute—our societies are, after all, integral in providing our members local experiences, relationships, networks, live programming, career support, and educational opportunities that complement the efforts of CFA Institute. We must continue to work together to help us achieve our shared objectives.
And we are keeping your feedback about the support you receive in mind as we evaluate the levels of resourcing appropriate for each society category—local/member societies, professional associations, and global financial centers—in our differentiated model.
Areas of Opportunity
Although much is working well in our partnership, the survey data also reinforced the areas that require our further attention and focus. The top responses to the question that asked you to identify opportunities to focus our joint attention to improve include the following:
- We determine our future together, through purposeful collaboration and strategic alignment, with our stakeholders always in mind.
- We are transparent and open in our communications; mutual trust is the foundation of our relationships.
- We recognize that a successful partnership requires attention, investment of time and resources, and openness to evolution.
The open comments reinforced these sentiments, with about 75% of your feedback noting a greater need for consultation and collaboration between CFA Institute and the society network, greater clarity on the strategy of CFA Institute, and more transparency in our communications.
We took this early feedback into account in our recent interactions with the society network. Open comments in the survey indicated that previous town hall sessions felt too scripted and structured and didn’t provide enough opportunity for dialogue. In response, we shifted the format of our September global town halls from a webinar to a Zoom meeting so we could more easily address your comments and questions in the moment. Similarly, for the regional SLCs, we focused on opportunities for collaboration as a guiding principle in developing the plenary programming and breakout sessions.
We will continue to keep this feedback in mind as we look for more impactful opportunities to communicate and engage with you throughout the year.
What Societies Need
The survey also helped highlight the areas most important to your society’s success over the next year, which align well with key initiatives we are undertaking at CFA Institute. In addition to promoting the value of society membership, through both quantitative and qualitative feedback, you identified the following areas as most important to your society’s success over the next year:
- member participation in society services and events
- engaging members and other stakeholders
- promoting the CFA Program
- brand awareness
- society-to-society collaboration
Aspects of our refined strategy, organizational structure, and planned activities for FY23 match well with our societies’ needs on a macro level.
The member experience has come into sharper focus for the organization in the last year. As a result, my own role has expanded to include membership—in addition to Society Relations, I will oversee our membership strategy and the Global Membership team and consider how we serve, engage, and grow our membership.
On the marketing and customer experience front, Tom Berry, our Chief Marketing Officer, is in the process evaluating our overall brand, including our value propositions, brand architecture, and imagery, as well as our customer experience strategy. Based on the conversations he has already had with society representatives at the AMER and EMEA SLCs, he is working on plans for how we can involve and activate the society community in these projects.
Chris Wiese, CFA, Managing Director, Credentialing, has begun to share details of Project Evolve, our initiative to ensure the continued relevance of the CFA Program and meet market demand for a more inclusive, personalized, and practical learning experience. We will provide societies with the resources you need to communicate these changes and the enhanced value of the CFA Program and charter. We will also develop campaigns to drive awareness and interest in the CFA Program with current candidates and new prospects.
To support society management and collaboration, we have invested in Higher Logic, a community management platform that hosts online communities. We hope that this interactive society community will enable our society leaders and staff to learn from peers globally, allow for consistent collaboration, and offer real-time communications and information sharing.
Society engagement in these initiatives is top of mind for our leadership, so we look forward to partnering with you as we continue with their development and implementation.
Full Results
For a more comprehensive view of the survey results, including global and regional data and feedback from the open comments, please visit Society Center (Engagement and Feedback tile).
Looking Ahead
The insights we gain from conducting this survey are invaluable, and we want to hear from as many society leaders and staff members as possible. We suspect that administering the survey in July and August—a time when many boards are changing over and our leaders and staff may be on holiday—has impacted our participation rates. To encourage greater participation, we plan to administer the 2023 Partnership Effectiveness Survey in the May–June time frame. Doing so will also allow us to take the network’s pulse as the Society Operating Model continues to develop and to inform our FY24 planning earlier.
We have shared our findings with our colleagues at CFA Institute, with the Society Partnership Advisory Council (SPAC), and with our Presidents Council Representatives. We are in the process of developing an action plan to address the areas of opportunity the survey results reflected—especially those not already being addressed by our strategic initiatives. In the coming months, we will share that action plan with the network.
Thank you to our survey participants for the time you took to share your thoughts. I appreciate that fielding the survey gives us all a built-in opportunity to stop, reflect, and assess where we are and where we can go. The conversations I’ve had and heard about the Society Operating Model crystallize this moment as an opportunity consider the value we bring to our stakeholders and to each other. We would all do well to keep this in mind as we consider our future together.
SOCIETY MANAGEMENT
Quarterly Society Technology Update
Learn about our progress on launching the Higher Logic online community management platform, member and candidate codes in Salesforce, and membership renewal and invoicing data in the second installment of our Quarterly Society Technology Update.
ETHICS AND RESEARCH, ADVOCACY, AND STANDARDS
Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: A Framework for Professionals Report and Toolkit
Given the complexity of AI integration projects, leadership should establish a strategic vision and ethical culture for AI development within their organizations. Gain actionable insights from the “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence in Investment Management, a Framework for Professionals” report.
This new report, the latest out of the Research, Advocacy, and Standards team at CFA Institute, recognizes the spectrum of issues brought about by AI tools and big data in investing and sets out questions for professionals and investment teams to consider when working with AI technologies at each step of the AI workflow. We invite you to use our marketing toolkit to promote this report to your audiences.
Remember to check our Content and Product Pipeline to see what we have planned for the coming months.
CREDENTIALING AND CANDIDATE SUPPORT
Project Evolve Communications
We are beginning to share more details to additional audiences about Project Evolve, our initiative to ensure the continued relevance of the CFA Program to meet the needs of employers and candidates. Look for an Executive Update to be sent to the CFA Institute membership, providing more information about upcoming expanded eligibility for the CFA Program.
MEMBERSHIP
2022 Recovery Campaign
Our efforts to recover our lapsed members continue. We will begin mailing physical letters to lapsed members using similar segmentation as was used in our global email campaigns. Depending on local delivery times, these should be delivered within the next two weeks. The letters will include a QR code to help us understand more about the impact of this touchpoint on retention rates.