Please elaborate on your experience and involvement with volunteerism, specifically involving aasp.
My involvement with aasp spans nearly my entire career, and I have had the privilege of contributing to the organization in a wide range of volunteer roles. I currently serve as Chair of the DEI, Ethics, and Compliance Committee, where our work focuses on supporting thoughtful, responsible practices in advancement services and helping the profession navigate evolving expectations around data, equity, and governance. Over the years, I have also chaired the Advancement Technology Best Practice Committee, co-chaired the Annual Summit, and served on the Strategic Planning Committee, the Membership Committee, and the 10th Anniversary Committee. I have led and participated in several task forces, including serving as Chair of the DEI in Advancement Data Task Force and Co-Chair of the Membership Campaign Task Force. These experiences have given me the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across the profession to shape programming, resources, and community engagement for the organization. One initiative that is particularly meaningful to me is the scholarship program I founded to expand access to the Annual Summit for practitioners from underrepresented organizations and smaller advancement shops without dedicated professional development resources. What began as a single scholarship has grown into a program that now supports multiple practitioners each year.I have presented at Summit 10+ times and serve as a peer mentor within the organization. Across all of these roles, my focus has been on strengthening the profession, supporting practitioners at every stage of their careers, and helping ensure that aasp remains a welcoming and relevant professional home for advancement services professionals.

Why are you excited to serve on the aasp Board of Directors and what can you bring to the position?
I am excited to serve on the aasp Board of Directors in the DEI, Ethics, and Compliance seat because I see this work as both a service to our members and stewardship of the profession at large. Advancement Services practitioners operate at the intersection of data, technology, and institutional decision-making, which places us in a unique position to shape ethical practice and responsible data use across our organizations. I believe aasp can play an important role in helping practitioners navigate these responsibilities with clarity, practical guidance, and a strong professional community. In this role, I would focus on helping ensure that our work around DEI, ethics, and compliance is both principled and practical. That includes removing barriers to individual participation in the organization, supporting practitioners from a wide range of institutional contexts, and encouraging thoughtful engagement with our peer organizations. My goal is to help create an environment where members feel supported in raising difficult questions, sharing emerging challenges, and developing our profession at a leading pace rather than a trailing pace. Having chaired the DEI, Ethics, and Compliance Committee, I have seen firsthand how valuable these conversations are when they are grounded in collaboration and professional respect. I would bring that perspective to the Board, working to ensure that aasp continues to provide leadership, guidance, and an inclusive professional home for Advancement Services practitioners.

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Andrew Gutierrez is a fundraising professional and data scientist who has worked primarily in the healthcare philanthropy space since 2018, having held roles such as Data Scientist and Systems Analyst at Cleveland Clinic’s Philanthropy Institute, and Associate Director of Development Operations at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Originally beginning his philanthropy career as a grant writer before transitioning to analytics, his work now primarily focuses on using predictive modeling to identify and segment prospects, quantify donors’ capacity and affinity, and project gift revenue outcomes. Andrew has been the Vice President of Apra’s Illinois chapter since 2025, and he is also a member of the Association for Advancement Services Professionals’ (aasp) Education Committee and Apra International’s Conference Planning Committee. He has presented at industry events such as the Midwest “Meeting of the Minds” Annual Giving and Advancement Services Conference, Apra's annual Prospect Development Conference, and the Texas Advancement Analytics Symposium, and his writing has appeared in publications such as Apra Connections and the University of Texas Press’s Journal of Advancement Analytics. Andrew graduated from Ohio State University with an undergraduate degree in Arts Administration & Policy. Outside of the philanthropy world, you can likely find him at his “5 to 9” gig as an indoor cycling instructor for Chicago’s Fitness Formula Clubs.

Please elaborate on your experience and involvement with volunteerism, specifically involving aasp.
I've been a member of aasp's Education Committee since 2025, through which I've had the opportunity to help plan and promote aasp's Summer Series event as well as its first-ever Leadership Institute. Pulling from my experience working at a two-person fundraising shop before matriculating to a large organization, I recognized the need for educational material aimed towards smaller teams and developed "Advancement Services Moneyball: Approximating Big Shop Tools on a Small Shop Budget" as a webinar session for 2025's Summer Series. For 2026, I am focusing on another topic - AI adoption. Drawing from my experience being primarily responsible for developing and implementing AI tools at a large organization, I am putting together a session focused on "AI fatigue" and what happens when uncritical executive championing of AI meets the day-to-day grounded experience of the advancement rank-and-file. It's a session that I think our members will find particularly interesting and useful.

Why are you excited to serve on the aasp Board of Directors and what can you bring to the position?
One of my favorite professional and personal discoveries in recent years has been that participation in and empowerment of a community of peers absolutely trumps individual accomplishments as a source of joy. I've loved getting involved in the aasp community and would be thrilled at the opportunity to formally steward our member community. My most relevant experience for the role has been my time as the Vice President for Illinois's chapter of Apra, a role I've been in since the start of 2025. A professional organization with now over 100 members, Apra-IL has flourished in recent years. Upon joining the board, I put my technical skills to work in order to drive membership operations and engagement. I gained access to Apra-IL's WildApricot association management account and, using Python and the system's API, wrote a suite of programs to regularly extract all member, events, communications, and financial data for the chapter dating back 10 years. That data now populates a suite of cloud-hosted dashboards, which my board colleagues and I can use to view to up-to-date chapter data at any moment. Harnessing that data also led me to develop a new membership engagement metric, defining a member as "engaged" if they had attended an event, clicked through an email, or made a financial purchase from the chapter within the last six months. At the time that I started on the Apra-IL board, less than 50% of members met this metric; now that figure is over 80%. I'd love to bring some of the ideas and strategies I've tested out and implemented at Apra-IL - which also include implementation of a new virtual newsletter, focused member acquisition outreach on major Illinois institutions, and the chapter's first-ever hybrid conference event - to aasp's Member Operations Committee.

Any other additional notable accomplishments to share?:
I have a passion for developing educational content for my peers in the fundraising community - particularly content related to data science, which has been my most recent work area. In recent years I've been pleased to have been invited to present either in-person or virtually to a number of fundraising organizations, including:"Understanding Prospect Lifetime Value (PLV)" - May 2026, Apra Georgia""It's Who You Know": A Taxonomy of Data Science Strategies for Relationship Mapping" - April 2026 , Advancement Tableau User Group (ATUG) "Understanding Proposal Probability: A New Statistic for Pipeline Forecasting" - February 2026, Apra International "Creating a Comprehensive Philanthropic Revenue Projection System” - August Texas Advancement Analytics Symposium "Advancement Services Moneyball: Approximating Big Shop Tools on a Small Shop Budget" - July 2025, Association of Advancement Services Professionals’ 2025 Summer Series Deep Dive "Innovative Practices in Prospect Research & Prospect Management” - July 2025, Midwest “Meeting of the Minds” Annual Giving & Advancement Services Conference (Chicago, IL) "Lessons from the Front Lines: Implementing Generative AI at Cleveland Clinic” - June 2025, AHP Summit on Artificial Intelligence (Indianapolis, IN)

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Jessica Harris

Please elaborate on your experience and involvement with volunteerism, specifically involving aasp?
I have been on the membership committee for almost three years. I have been doing new member welcome emails for almost the entire time. I volunteer locally with the animal shelter and medical fund, writing grants. I have been a foster for several animal groups for the past 20 years. I am a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for a child in foster care.

Why are you excited to serve on the aasp Board of Directors and what can you bring to the position?
I am excited to serve on the AASP Board of Directors because of my passion for advancing the profession, supporting peers in the advancement community, and helping shape the future of the organization. I value the opportunity to collaborate with fellow leaders, contribute fresh ideas, and advocate for initiatives that provide meaningful resources and connections for members. Serving on the board would allow me to give back to a community that has supported my professional growth while also helping strengthen aasp's impact and mission for years to come.

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Heather Johnson

Heather Johnson has worked in the field of advancement services and donor revenue management for 15 years, and is the Deputy Director, Donor Revenue Management & Policy at UNICEF USA, which is headquartered in New York City. In her role at UNICEF USA, Heather leads a team of gift processors, manages donor revenue reconciliation, documents policies and procedures, and reviews all gift agreements. Prior to joining UNICEF USA, she was the Associate Director of Revenue Operations at Share Our Strength in Washington, DC. Heather is an active member of aasp, serving on the DEI in Advancement Data Task Force subcommittee before joining the Membership Operations committee as a member and now co-chair. Heather divides her time between Chicago and Washington DC, and loves exploring both cities’ museums and restaurants.

Please elaborate on your experience and involvement with volunteerism, specifically involving aasp?
I started my adult volunteering journey with ten years as a troop leader with the Girl Scouts of the National Capital Area. Currently, I serve on the Development Committee of Sunflower Bakery, a Maryland nonprofit that provides job training for young adults with learning differences, and volunteer at the (Washington) DC Central Kitchen, preparing food for distribution. My aasp volunteering started in 2023, assisting the DEI in Advancement Data Task Force with the publication Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) for Advancement Services: Best Practices for Today's Success. I joined the Membership Operations committee the following year, becoming co-chair in 2025.

Why are you excited to serve on the aasp Board of Directors and what can you bring to the position?
The aasp mission to "strengthen the field of advancement services and the careers of individual professionals by connecting, informing, and empowering a network of current and aspiring advancement services leaders" resonates strongly. My career in the industry stretches back to the 1990s, working for many nonprofit verticals, including arts & entertainment, independent schools, community services, hunger relief, and international aid. That varied background gives me insight into the unique needs of small, medium, and large organizations. I am excited to offer my expertise in bringing people and systems together to ensure that our programs add value and support members at all levels.

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Director of Technology Candidates

Jeff Baynham