Certification Maintenance Quarterly Achievement Report

Summer 2008

APA Interact for Certified Planners will share Institute-wide CM achievement with all AICP members to track our progress and help you benchmark your own. The first two-year CM reporting period began on January 1, 2008, although many AICP members began earning credits as early as April 14, 2007, at the National Planning Conference in Philadelphia.

As of June 30, 2008:

• 49 percent of AICP members had logged at least one CM credit.
• 20 percent had logged at least half of the required 32 credits.
• More than 5 percent had logged 32 or more credits.
• 129 members had logged more than 48 credits. (Remember, you may carry over a maximum of 16 credits from one two-year CM reporting period to the next. These cannot include the required law and ethics credits.)

AICP members are traditionally the most loyal, and APA enjoyed a 96 percent retention rate among this group in fiscal year 2007. APA's retention efforts focus on reinforcing the value of AICP and CM to members through improved programming, communications (including APA Interact for Certified Planners), member discounts, and establishing firm ties with new members quickly. APA also relies on chapters and divisions to support our efforts in promoting AICP and CM to current and future members as well as to potential providers.

More than 2,400 AICP members used the new badge-scanning feature at the 2008 National Planning Conference in Las Vegas. APA provided this optional service to help members track and record attendance at individual sessions and workshops. Afterwards staff uploaded data captured into members' online CM logs as pending credits. Attendees needed only to confirm the session information, saving time in claiming the credits earned at the five-day conference.

More than 800 candidates registered for the May 2008 exam — a record high that may be due to the new CM requirement and the increasing credibility of the AICP credential.

So far we have registered 258 professional education providers. Only 23 percent are APA national or its chapters and divisions. There are 1,338 approved events offering a total of 10,083 credits.