Advocacy Role of the State IFAPAC Chair

Your appointment as IFAPAC Chair is critically important to the success of the fundraising activities of your association.

You will want to start fundraising as soon as your appointment is effective. Read the State Plan for Success and IFAPAC Fundraising Calendar to keep track of your fundraising progress throughout the year.

Your most critical task will be to get your fellow members involved and keep your local fundraising chairs motivated.

Tell them that elected officials are shaping their future every day. Health insurance reform, retirement and pension restructuring, insurance regulatory reform, government-mandated fiduciary standards, tax reform, estate planning, and many other issues are being legislated daily. Everyone in the insurance and financial services business who wants to stay in business and protect their clients should be contributing to IFAPAC.

Your top priority is to encourage all of your local chairs to form IFAPAC fundraising committees. Years of experience have shown that local chapters with an educated IFAPAC committee in place and headed by an effective chair, have the best results. No one-time fundraising event, even a well-planned one, can take the place of an effective committee with a workable plan and goals. A fundraising committee makes each local chapter accountable for success. A committee provides for a natural progression of leadership in IFAPAC. And committee members push one another to achieve.

Soloists, however well-intentioned, can’t reach everyone in the association. It’s too big a job.
Recruit people for your fundraising committee who believe in the mission of IFAPAC, have an interest in politics, and are already contributing generously to IFAPAC. Mark your calendar to check in with your local chairs once every 30 days (more often during the year-end fundraising push) in order to see how fundraising is progressing and to see what
specific efforts are planned.

At a minimum, your goals each year should include:

Renewing all of last year’s contributors who are still current NAIFA members
Encouraging members to increase their contribution amounts over the prior year
Acquiring new contributors — A top priority for the first quarter of the year
Getting all state and local chapter Boards of Directors to contribute
Ensuring that your chapter makes a budget line item for an administrative contribution to IFAPAC

State IFAPAC Chair Job Descriptions:

Raise political and administrative funds
Contribute to IFAPAC at the Bronze level or above
Attend your IFAPAC region’s conference calls
Work with the state and local leaders to increase the number of completed IFAPAC Directives
Comply with all federal and state election laws
Host an IFAPAC Booth at the state convention to increase IFAPAC visibility and raise funds
Maintain a supply of IFAPAC materials, such as enrollment forms, Directives, and brochures
Ensure the use of the 1) inactive contributors (lapsed) report, 2) legislative contacts reports
Form a fundraising committee and appoint a vice (or co-) chair.
Establish a system of succession so that the next state chair will be well-trained to assume your responsibilities
Establish state goals & local goals
Train, educate, and motivate local IFAPAC chairs and their committees
Communicate regularly with your local/ regional chairs and provide them with fundraising ideas
Encourage your local/regional chairs to strive for the IFAPAC Recognition Awards
Work with your State Chapter Executive to ensure that the monthly reports from the National IFAPAC are being distributed to the local chairs and other leaders.
Ask for a local IFAPAC chair to be replaced if necessary.
Coordinate state IFAPAC and Grassroots committee efforts
Help to coordinate candidate selection feedback
Help coordinate IFAPAC candidate contribution deliveries
Ensure that anyone requesting IFAPAC funds for a federal open seat candidate or challenger completes the Candidate Questionnaire found here
Report state activities to your:
National IFAPAC regional vice chair
State board and the local presidents