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McGinly To Retire, Board Reorganizes At AHP

Toronto, Ontario, Canada – Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) President and CEO William McGinly will retire next summer after 30 years with the organization. Attending his final AHP annual international conference in Toronto, Ontario, McGinly, 67, announced he would serve through June 30, 2014. A search committee is expected to choose one of two search firms tomorrow, McGinly said.

Earlier this week, AHP’s 15-member board of directors voted to reduce itself to seven members. Previously, there were five officers and seven members by region, each of which had a cabinet of officers. “We’re really looking for competencies they bring relative to management,” McGinly said. AHP reduced its board size from 30 to 15 in the early 1990s and the regional cabinet structure became cumbersome.

“We were never as nimble as I would have liked,” said McGinly. “This governance structure will create a lot more nimbleness.”

Founded in 1967, AHP has “reinvented itself at least five times in my 30 years,” McGinly said. “It keeps you charged up.” A graduate of Mount Saint Mary’s College, McGinly holds a master’s degree from Villanova University and a Ph.D. from American University. He joined AHP in 1983.

McGinly cited a number of changes to AHP as a result of strategic planning and research in recent years, based primarily on the book, “Race for Relevance: 5 Radical Changes for Associations.” The changes included overhauling its governance model to encourage more participation; enhancing the leadership role of the CEO and associates at AHP’s Falls Church, Va., headquarters; rationalizing programs and services to focus on where to have maximum effect; rigorously defining the membership market; and, bridging the technology gap.

“The thrust is we’re not here to serve the board or the staff, but membership,” McGinly said in a sitdown with The NonProfit Times during the annual International Conference being held this week at the Sheraton Centre Toronto.

The organization focused on research, particularly Race For Relevance, to determine initiatives to focus on what to deliver to members. “We’re not in the business of dismissing a part of the membership but matching up with what their needs are,” he said.

William Littlejohn of Sharp HealthCare Foundation in San Diego, Calif., will continue as chairman into 2014, with David Flood of Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, Utah, serving as vice chairman. Other members include Randy Varju of Advocate Health Care in Downsers Grove, Ill., Julie Cox of Baltimore, Md.-based LifeBridge Health, Jory Pritchard-Keer with Collingwood General & Marine Hospital Foundation in Collingwood, Ontario, and CentraCare Health Foundation’s Mark Larkin in St. Cloud, Minn. Terms will be staggered and not necessarily based on geography.

There will be a process for board nominations by this time next year, McGinly said. The board will have two standing committees: risk management and board development/governance, each of which will have one to two board members along with members at large. Risk management will focus on finance and audit issues while the other committee will focus on policies, procedures and identifying and cultivating potential leaders.

AHP’s new eLearning initiative — including on-demand courses in major, annual and planned giving – was almost two years in the making, McGinly said. The six to eight programs now available will look simple by comparison at this time next year. The initial programs will focus on reading, learning and being tested on materials. They will eventually include case studies, live programming and YouTube videos. Stronger educational programs are designed to address day-to-day needs of members in whatever areas they’re seeking.

Part of bridging the technology gap also involved reporting data to develop consistent standards but also be able track members and their needs and strengths. “Our initiatives are trying to achieve that – what characteristics achieve success,” McGinly said.

Next year’s conference schedule for AHP will take on an entirely different look. Rather than four regional conferences, AHP will offer more theme-based conferences throughout the spring, based on topics and skillsets. “Members are telling us with their feet and their dollars: they want to go where they’re going to be able to build their skills,” McGinly said. Conferences next year will be on topics such as leadership (Baltimore, Md., in early June), big ideas in healthcare philanthropy (New Orleans, La., in late June) and Convene Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, late April/early May. The annual conference will be in Palm Desert, Calif., in the fall.