Long-Range Planning in the Financial Analysts Federation

Abstract

AT THE first Financial Analysts Federation (FAF) Board meeting following my election as Chairman, I recommended that the Federation engage itself more actively in a program of planning for its future. I felt that we already had a strong foundation on which to build. During its years as an organization, the FAF had accomplished much of which to be proud. In parallel with the profession of investment management itself, the Federation had gone through a maturing process that enabled it to pass several severe tests threatening its continued existence as an effective professional body. Urging further long-term planning involved recognition that the major issue for the FAF was no longer one of survival, but rather one of how best to achieve the goals and objectives of serving our membership. Long-range planning is, after all, a process that enables an organization to become what it wants to be. Without proper planning, we would almost certainly undershoot our full potential. Accordingly, I suggested that we hold a special meeting of the FAF Policy and Planning Committee, augmented by additional participants, to focus solely on the subject of long-range planning. In order to get the most out of this meeting, I recognized that it, too, had to be planned. Knowing that Dennis Bouwer, one of our Board members, was well experienced and interested in the area of long-range planning, I asked for his assistance in this effort. Armed with Dennis Bouwer's well prepared outline for a two-and-a-half day meeting on long-range planning, we scheduled a working session for June 22nd through 24th in Bethesda, Maryland. Invited to the meeting were all elected officers of the FAF and senior staff, Roderick O'Neill, newly elected President of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, and the four previous FAF Board Chairmen-Walter McConnell, William Gray, Robert Hedberg and Eugene Vaughan. Our series of sessions generated a number of constructive suggestions. Some of them are reflected in the following sections of this article, which represent (1) a contribution by Dennis Bouwer, growing out of his outline for the Bethesda meeting, (2) a summary by Theodore Lilley of the findings of the meeting and (3) a report by Benjamin Korschot on how the Federation has met and is meeting its responsibility for long-range planning, and his suggestions regarding the best way to meet that on-going responsibility. Solon P. Patterson FAF Chairman, 1977-78