1. Hello ACB! My name is Dan Spoone and I am running for President. I live in Orlando, Florida with my lovely wife Leslie. Wow, what an exciting and challenging first term!
These past two years have been dominated by the COVID19 pandemic. Our ACB family has grieved the loss of cherished members and friends. Our member volunteers, with the guidance of Cindy Hollis, provided a welcoming community for support and socialization. Our dedicated staff worked remotely in the areas of accessible voting, audio description and digital accessibility. We all pulled together to produce our first completely virtual ACB Conference and Convention streamed on ACB Radio with over 100 breakout sessions. We also held a virtual DC Leadership Conference with the support of Clark Rachfal and the Advocacy Steering Committee with 18 hours of educational programming and a Fireside Chat with blind community leaders.
The ACB Board of Directors and staff has worked to implement the “Traction” Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to provide a roadmap for the future. We have established a strategic plan with one-year, three-year and five-year targets. ACB has continued to grow our endowment funds with investments of $5.2 million and an annual operating budget of $1.8 million. We have expanded our staff with a membership services assistant for community events, an ADP coordinator, a communications manager and an administrative assistant for the Alexandria office. ACB leadership adopted a formal Code of Conduct and practices the five core values of integrity and honesty, respect, collaboration, flexibility and initiative.
ACB members, “Thank You” for all of your efforts and giving me the opportunity to serve. Together we can continue our journey towards a better future for all of us. I’m honored to have been your President for the past two years and I humbly ask for your vote.
2. The last two years have been a valuable learning experience. Our ACB family has a tremendous passion for each other and the civil rights of the blind and low vision community. The challenge as your president has been to help guide the volunteer members and staff to maximize the energy towards our nine key program areas. These are convention, advocacy, membership services, scholarship, peer support, audio Description, public awareness, administration and resource development. I hope my business experience has played a small role in creating this organizational structure and providing the “Traction” methodology.
It has also been important to understand and relate to the personal needs of our members during a period of tremendous uncertainty. We needed to provide a welcoming place to socialize, grieve, laugh, cry and explore. My role as president was to help foster this community and promote its growth. I’m very proud of the culture of diversity and inclusion ACB has embraced. All are welcome and everyone respects our five core values and the code of conduct, which confirm our commitment to a safe and respectful place to call home.
Also, my years serving on the Resource Development Committee (RDC) and the Budget Committee have given me experience in establishing achievable revenue and expense objectives. The creation of the legacy endowment fund allows donors to give a transformative gift that will last into perpetuity. The volunteer members program continues to grow with over 42,000 hours in 2020 worth over $1 million of in-kind contributions.
The ACB President must listen, learn, provide direction, cheer our accomplishments, thank our staff and members, embrace our partners and communicate our successes. I’m still learning and I appreciate your support over the past two years to improve our ACB family.
3. Our biggest challenge within ACB is growing resources. These are both human resources, through member and volunteer acquisition, and the supporting financial resources these additional members will bring to ACB.
We can only accomplish these goals by transforming our organization. We must ask ourselves, "What added value do we bring to our membership in the 21st century?" Currently, 95 percent of all blind and visually impaired individuals do not belong to any consumer organization. How do we recruit these people? We have taken huge strides forward with the Community Events, which have brought a new level of engagement for our members and friends. We need to strengthen our affiliates and leverage our advocacy, audio description, membership services and scholarship programs to engage larger foundations and other major donors.
The Next Generation Committee is a positive example of growing our membership. The Next Generation Committee was formed to encourage younger members to get excited about ACB and we sponsored 10 young leaders to attend the D.C. Leadership Conference. The Next Generation members have formed an affiliate with over 75 members. They are our future.
We must build on these successes. This will not be easy, but with a dedicated strategic plan we can double our ACB membership over the next five years and raise an additional $500,000 for necessary staff to provide support for affiliates, marketing, and advocacy requirements. I would appreciate your support for the position of ACB President. Together we can make a difference.