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.

Year in Review: ACFE Publishes 2010 Report to Members

GUEST BLOGGER

Scott Patterson, ACFE Media Relations Specialist

The ACFE’s Report to Members is one of the publications I really enjoy working on every year. The Report to Members is unique because it is one of the few opportunities we have to look back, reflect on endeavors and successes, and works-in-progress. The theme of this year’s Report is “Leading the Profession: 2010 in Review,” which I find appropriate because the ACFE truly is the leader in fraud training and resources. Our membership grew by almost 10 percent in 2010, and we now have members in more than 150 countries, an amazing feat considering the difficult economic times.

What the Report is really about, though, is looking at the things the ACFE has done (and is doing) to support our members and remain in this position of leadership. The benefits we provide make joining the ACFE one of the best decisions an anti-fraud professional can make. The letter in the Report from our president and CEO, James D. Ratley, CFE, mentions many of these initiatives. The new Fraud Magazine website; an improved CFE Exam Prep Course®; online chat with member representatives; the new 2010 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse and Compensation Guide for Anti-Fraud Professionals with international data; the largest and best annual fraud conference in the world; the list goes on. The Report also includes initiatives we are rolling out in 2011, such as the ACFE Advisory Council and an enhanced Career Center on ACFE.com.

Another great aspect of the Report is the ACFE member profiles we’ve included. Read about Ashley Busa, CFE, and Boyd Foster, CFE, and learn about their journeys to become professional fraud fighters. Also, one of the coolest new things about this year’s report is an embedded video interview with another CFE, Corey Costa. Corey sat down with us at the 21st ACFE Fraud Conference & Exhibition in Washington, D.C., last year to discuss how membership and the CFE credential have helped him along the way. Having his video interview available in the report truly adds a multimedia element to it.

I hope ACFE members enjoy reading the 2010 Report to Members as much as we enjoyed creating it. I’m already looking forward to next year’s edition.

Download the 2010 Report to Membershere.