Featured Chapters: Middle Tennessee and Upstate New York Chapters

Earlier this year, we awarded the 2023 Chapters of the Year to the New York Chapter and Southwest Ohio Chapter. These chapters went above and beyond to grow their membership and serve their community. To see their accomplishments, we encourage you to review their submission form.

With nearly 200 chapters, it is never easy choosing the winners of this award since there are so many deserving chapters. I’d like to recognize a couple of chapters that also submitted a nomination form and highlight a few of their achievements. This month, I’d like to focus on and congratulate the Middle Tennessee Chapter and the Upstate New York Chapter.

Middle Tennessee Chapter

The Middle Tennessee Chapter in Nashville, TN is home to 416 dues-paying members. In 2022, they held 9 events providing 31 CPE credits. They offered various training opportunities including a two-day hybrid event, a one-day hybrid and various webinars. The webinars also provided CPE credits to local CPAs.

The chapter offers many benefits to being a member and participating in chapter activities. The chapter gives away at least one CFE Exam Prep Course per year. They frame the CFE certificate of any member who passes the CFE Exam and becomes a CFE for free. Also, members receive ‘points’ for attending events and passing the CFE Exam. The member with the most points receives a complimentary registration for the ACFE’s Global Fraud Conference.

The chapter provides $10,000 worth of scholarships to college students each year. These recipients either reside in the chapter’s region or attend school in the region. Also, they helped raise more than $13,000 for the ACFE Foundation during the ACFE’s 33rd Annual Global Fraud Conference by organizing a concert featuring Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives.

They also dedicated their time and money on separate occasions to fight hunger in its region by working with the Second Harvest Food Bank helping raise approximately $1,500.

Upstate New York

The Upstate New York Chapter is in Syracuse, NY. They have 79 dues-paying members, which is more than 25% of all the ACFE members in the area. This number is significantly higher than the average for all chapters that charge dues (17.58% - according to the 2022 Report on the Chapters).

Over the past two years, their chapter leaders set goals and developed a plan to have the chapter become active and offer events to the members. They first developed their social media presence by creating a user-friendly website that’s easily manageable. The website also helps manage their membership and their communications. Once this was in place, they began to hold events and networking opportunities to the local members and formed relationships with local organizations. As members began to attend more events and membership grew, they because more profitable, enabling them to pay for high-quality speakers and give back to the members. Their efforts have seen them double their membership since 2020 and double the number of CPE credits they were offering.

Their chapter held four events in 2022 offering up to 20 CPE credits. In addition to hosting their own events, they offered a full-day event including a presentation by convicted fraudster Brett Johnson, they partnered up with the South Florida Chapter for a 2-hour ethics event, as well as worked with other local organizations.

The chapter leaders have also made time to reach out to the local students and gave presentations at Utica College and lectured at Syracuse University about fraud-related careers.

Thank you to the Middle Tennessee and the Upstate New York Chapters for the time you spend giving back to the members and the community. We look forward to hearing more about your accomplishments in 2023.