Making Membership Mean More

GUEST BLOGGER

Scott Patterson
ACFE Senior Media Relations Specialist

Planning for the year ahead. Setting new goals. Making resolutions. These are just a few rituals that many of us dig into with the coming of a new year. It is only natural and healthy to be forward-looking. Yet one project has taught me the value of looking at the past, as well. 

Every year, starting in December, we start putting together the ACFE Report to Members. It is a chance to reflect on accomplishments and achievements during the course of the year, and keeps us grounded and focused on where we are headed for the future. For example: the ACFE’s international presence continued to grow in 2012, with historic fraud conferences in Greece and South Africa. Telling these stories may inspire other international chapters and their members as they plan their events for 2013, along with conferences like the fast-approaching 2013 ACFE European Fraud Conference, March 17-19 in Prague.

As editor of The Fraud Examiner e-newsletter, I've already got a month-to-month snapshot of many ACFE happenings throughout the year. But there are resources such as our free, members-only webinars and new online career events that occurred not just once, but regularly, during 2012. The Report gives us the chance to reflect on all of those accomplishments.

Our Report to Members for 2012 has a theme: Making Membership Mean More. Nice alliteration, right? But it is also a sincere expression of our commitment to making your ACFE membership as valuable as it can be -- the most beneficial and irreplaceable professional membership around. That is our focus, and every year our entire staff works hard to develop new ways to fulfill this commitment.

You can read in the Report about the initiatives we took in 2012 to do this -- I won't spoil it. But I will tell you what's new about the publication itself. This year, we rolled it out in a new format -- those of you on iPads can download the specially developed iBooks version of the Report to Members. You'll be able to view the multimedia features inside the document itself. Of course, we know not everyone carries an iPad, so the Report is still available in PDF format, as well. 

In addition to a letter from our president and CEO, James D. Ratley, CFE, and highlights for the year, we've included a member profile and a video interview. There is also a link to our new podcast series, Fraud Talk, as well as a slideshow of images from different events throughout 2012. We hope you enjoy all the different ways to look back on last year through these special features.

Most of all, I hope you get as much inspiration from looking back at 2012 as we do. The Report to Members is available for download here.