"I went from thinking about myself as someone who will influence the sector someday to someone who can influence right now." - An American Express NGen Fellow in a recent survey

The American Express NGen Fellows Program is an opportunity to build your capacity for impact through collaboration, networking, learning, reflection, and recognition. 

We’ve had three incredible cohorts of NGen Fellows since 2009. Together they’ve learned about leadership and collaborated on a group project to move the needle on key issues in the nonprofit and philanthropic community.

Here's what they had to say about their experience ...

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Guest post by Tera Qualls, project manager, Community Research Institute, Dorothy A. Johnson Center, Grand Valley State University

"You can be stuck with your network for a significant amount of time.” For this reason alone, it is essential to develop relationships to build a good network and essentially decrease your degrees of separation from individuals in your own career and life goals.

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Today we launch The Hub, an online community for the IS Annual Conference. The Hub was created to allow attendees and speakers to meet and engage with one another before, during, and even after the conference this year in Chicago.

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Recently Will DeKrey, senior associate at Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., shared with us his experience at the NGen Speed Networking event in Atlanta last year. The NGen pre-conference program will take place October 29-30 just prior to the 2011 IS Annual Conference in Chicago.

Have you ever tried to explain to your grandma that you’re the grants administrator for a private non-operating foundation or that you’re the new media specialist for a community-based economic justice organization? Did it result in a blank stare and then a demand that you stop all the mail from nonprofits asking for money?

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