Nov1
2012 IS Conference: Share Your Ideas Today!
Annual Conference , GameChangers , NGen , PPAI , Voice Add comments
Inspired by your conversations at the 2011 Independent Sector Conference? Prompted to discover greater insight into key issues within the nonprofit and philanthropic sector? Interested in challenging new ideas and provoking assumptions?
If so, we encourage you to submit your program ideas in the comment box below for the 2012 IS Annual Conference:
- What topics should we discuss at our next conference?
- What questions would you like the nonprofit and philanthropic community to explore?
- What session ideas might you feel most compelled to attend?
- Which "GameChanging" speakers would you like to see at the conference?
Sharing your thoughts will help ensure the 2012 IS Annual Conference will address key issues important to the nonprofit and philanthropic sector.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Nov 8, 2011 at5:07 PM As someone based in San Francisco, I am happy to help out with this conference as needed.
Jan 31, 2012 at2:40 PM Thank you, Melanie. We're excited to be working with regional partners. Stay tuned for more information.
-Kristina Gawrgy Campbell
Communications & Social Media Manager
Independent Sector
Feb 2, 2012 at7:29 PM Okay, I'm biased - but my mom really is a Game Changer. She founded A Home Within, which is the only national nonprofit focused exclusively on meeting the emotional needs of foster youth, and a fantastic example of leveraging private resources to meet a public need. Given her background, the fact that she and a small group of private practice clinicians formulated a successful social entrepreneurial model that has grown organically from a local service provider into a national nonprofit is truly remarkable.
Feb 3, 2012 at9:27 AM Thank you, Jonas. That's exactly the kind of suggestion we're looking for, and we will pass it along to the IS Conference Program Committee. We hope to see you at the conference this year.
-Kristina Gawrgy Campbell
Communications & Social Media Manager
Independent Sector
Feb 6, 2012 at5:23 PM Some of the topics/big themes we're working on:
• Hyperlocal innovation and job creation thru socent/srbs (activities, examples, what's happening, what's new)
• a panel of funders, impact investors—what do they want, need to step up investment in this sector in a major way. by investment, I mean philanthropic and more traditional investment. how can we really improve/readiness for significant funding and how can we encourage freer release of capital?
• connecting with nontraditional/unexpected players, Unusual Suspects for job creation, social enterprise support, resource sharing, community impact investment, revenues, and community wealth (examples, opportunities, possibilities)
• "modern" mircolending models — that include wrap around or at least some key social system supports, that include village or collective cooperatives, other (both U.S. and international examples)
• what's new in fundraising (along with what's "old" and doesn't change, like the basic principles), including crowdsourcing, the "democratization" of philanthropy, the more crowded askers market...
Let me know if you'd like help putting together sessions on topics like these!
Feb 7, 2012 at10:13 AM Excellent suggestions! Thank you, Amy. We'll pass these along to our Conference Committee. Hope to see you at the conference this year.
Feb 8, 2012 at9:28 AM Transparency in reporting (to donors both individual and institutional, to beneficiary communities, and to the public)
> N.B., this follows on naturally from so many of last year's "honesty about failure" conversations at IS Conference
Feb 8, 2012 at4:26 PM Thanks, Peter! Hope you'll join us at conference again this year in San Francisco!
Feb 8, 2012 at5:59 PM Absolutely! I'll be there - and I'll be bringing peers. The West Coast proximity makes it great for Seattle-folk!
I'll be looking for game-changers in transparency. 8^)
P
Feb 9, 2012 at11:45 AM I would like to suggest a session on Fiscal Sponsorship, and how it has evolved as an effective and efficient mechanism for establishing charitable programs and incubating nonprofits.
Feb 10, 2012 at10:59 AM An idea: Philanthropy's role in advancing education in an era defined by skyrocketing costs, increased technological advancement, and a growing creativity gap.
Feb 13, 2012 at5:52 PM Peter - So glad to hear that!
Julie and Dustin - Thank you very much for your wonderful suggestions.
Feb 14, 2012 at2:38 PM I would like to put forward Bruce Burtch, a leading thinker on the economic and social power of cross-sector partnerships. Bruce is an excellent speaker and has vast experience in partnerships between the nonprofit, for-profit, education and government sectors. Collaboration is the name of the game , especially in today’s economic climate. Bruce's work proves that there nothing is business today can provide as many benefits to all stakeholders as a cross-sector partnership. Nothing else comes even close.
Please contact me for more information.
Feb 15, 2012 at11:12 AM Michelle - Thank you for the suggestion on a speaker and topic. We'll submit to the conference program committee and let you know if we have any questions. Hope to see you in San Francisco.
Feb 15, 2012 at11:38 AM I would love to see a variety of topics dedicated to diversity and inclusion.
- How can we best leverage employee resource groups in nonprofits to elevate the work of traditionally under-represented staff and volunteers?
- What are the innovative and creative approachs to diversity and inclusion in the nonprofit sector related to trainings, tools and resources
I am passionate about diversity and inclusion work and believe it is vital for the nonprofit community to be seen as a leader in this area of focus. I would love to see and hear how other organizations approach diversity and inclusion and think it might make for some amazing conversations and thought circles at the conference.
The San Francisco Y has done some great work in this area and I believe they could serve as an organization to reach out to as a partner/presenter for this conference!
Heather Evans
Manager, Diversity and Inclusion
YMCA of the USA
Feb 15, 2012 at2:39 PM YNPN is on Philanthropy.com's list of 10 nonprofit organizations to watch in 2012, and 2012 also happens to be our 15th anniversary. The movement was founded here in the Bay Area, and the local chapter and YNPN National would love to play a role in the IS conference. I'm sure it's already on the radar, but wanted to say it again... just in case!
http://philanthropy.com/article/10-Nonprofits-to-Watch-in-2012/130213/
Feb 18, 2012 at6:08 PM I second Peter Drury in the suggestion to include game-changers in transparency. I have a suggestion for a thought-leader on this topic who would be an excellent addition to your speaker line-up if you could land him: Anil Patel. He was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2010 (www.ashoka.org/fellow/anil-patel) and is the founder of Framework (www.frameworkorg.org), a non-profit that focuses on "helping people connect with causes they care about." They do this through a series of innovative projects including Timeraiser, Civicfootprint, Platformation, and Sharesies. In an interview I did with him recently, he asserted "We really believe there is no more important governance question a board can ask or a funder evaluate than how well an organization is able to share." Because he believes in and practices transparency, there is a lot to be learned from his online sharing but he's also a great speaker. For the record, I don't work with Anil - I'm just a fan and a first year grad student in Seattle U's Arts Leadership program.
Feb 21, 2012 at4:27 PM Hi Heather, Brianna, and Snow,
Thank you for your comments and suggestions.
Brianna - Very good points. I'll make sure this is on our NGen Team's radar.
Hope to see you all in San Francisco for the conference.
Feb 23, 2012 at11:31 PM Game changing developments and advances in online open source software technologies applied to fundraising and mobilizations of supporters through peer-to-peer fundraising strategies. Look at the rapid adoption and penetration of innovative free open source solutions like CiviCRM (based in the Bay area!) and Drupal.
Feb 29, 2012 at2:12 PM Most of us know what our next project or promotion will be well before the day starts, but too few take advantage of our insider status and the time beforehand to prepare well. Indeed, putting in the time and effort up front can make the difference between getting by and truly excelling. I recently co-authored an article for the Managing Yourself section of Harvard Business Review focused on getting ready for your next assignment. We outline mistakes to avoid and steps to take – steps that are critical for role changers who want to have greater impact in their organizations, and greater success in their careers. Given the looming leadership deficit in the nonprofit sector and the fact that leadership development is ranked as the number one organizational weakness reported among nonprofit leaders, I think a dialogue on how to make the most of an internal move would be of interest to the audience and I’d be happy to be a part of it. This topic may be good for the next generation of leaders.
Mar 1, 2012 at9:04 AM I’m deeply concerned about the future of society’s safety net. Our government has increasingly outsourced the delivery of publicly-funded human services to nonprofit service providers. However, the fiscal reckoning that all levels of government are now working through – one that will likely last for a decade or more – is leading more of the burden for funding these services to fall on the mission-driven nonprofits themselves. This undermines the sustainability of these already stretched organizations and, over time, will decrease both the availability and erode the quality of the services they provide. If this trend continues, our social safety net will effectively undergo a death of a thousand cuts.
Just look at what happened to Chicago’s Hull House, which will be closing after more than 120 years of service. Like many human-service nonprofits, Hull House came to rely on the government for the majority of its funding. The difficulties that the Hull House faced -and that ultimately led to its closure- may have varied in degree but not at all in kind from those with which most human-service nonprofits are now grappling. Just as Hull House’s founding signaled the start of a new era in social services in the late 19th century, its demise at the outset of the 21st may come to stand as a milestone marking another reconfiguration of our society’s safety net. The question today for all the parties involved in paying for, delivering, and benefitting from human services in this country—virtually all of us—is not whether a fundamental reconfiguration will occur, but what form it might take.
The most frequently cited solutions in the social sector will not suffice. Exhortations for direct service nonprofits to engage in broader advocacy to defend their funding overlook that, an era of chronic budget reduction sets up a zero-sum game – increasing or preserving funding in one area means fewer resources for another. Likewise, government will not become a better contracting party to nonprofits anytime soon. If anything, the fiscal straits will exacerbate government agencies’ tendency to squeeze their suppliers and delay payments to them. Nor is a consolidation among sub-scale nonprofits- that will drive more sustainable economies of scale- any closer at hand. In short, we need a more fundamental reset than is currently on the social sector’s radar screen.
This topic is both important and urgent. I hope that Independent Sector creates a space for nonprofit leaders to grapple with this state of affairs. What could a fundamental reset look like? What is truly at stake? And most importantly, what should be done about it?
Mar 5, 2012 at9:34 AM We here at the Ad Council have a few ideas:
-Panel on best practices and innovation in regards to nonprofit management. Taking a holistic approach, a panel could discuss key metrics for things like Board engagement, strategic planning, financial stewardship, fundraising, diversity, etc. Participants could include the Center for Nonprofit Advancement (who hosts an annual nonprofit mgmt contest with The Washington Post) and prior winners as well as experts in the field.
-Panel on nonprofit brand planning and tracking(this could be a part II to last year’s session on branding..)
In an increasing competitive landscape, major nonprofits have invested major time and resources in defining their brand, assessing public perceptions, and benchmarking these measures against others in the nonprofit landscape. We could present a few case studies on how strategic research and assessment is helping sharpen nonprofits’ brand communications.
-Panel on evaluating nonprofit marketing and media programs. As opposed to program evaluation of direct service programs, evaluating the impact of media initiatives poses its own challenges. In particular, with the explosion of new media in this arena, there has been a similar growth in metrics. Given these complexities, how does a nonprofit organization set appropriate expectations for its media programs, and how does it assess impact, be it on organizational branding, fundraising, or influencing behavior?
Mar 5, 2012 at1:31 PM Alan, Katie, Daniel, and Kate: Thank you so much for your thoughtful suggestions. We will pass them along. Hope to see you in San Francisco this November!
Mar 11, 2012 at3:31 PM A number of people have mentioned the importance of transparency in giving. I recommend using Groundwork Opportunities (GO for short) as an example of how to best leverage technology to not only ensure transparency, but also use it as a strategic driver to propel funding levels and attract global donors and fundraisers via crowdsourcing. Bart Skorupa, the Executive Director of GO, would be a great person to speak at this conference and share the technology GO is using to disrupt the traditional fundraising model as well as share the corporate partnerships that brought it to fruition. As someone who used their platform, I was really impressed with how easy it made fundraising, and particularly how it enables fundraisers to contribute 100% of the donations I raised to the cause, without taking ANY administrative costs out. More info about GO can be found at http://www.groundworkopportunities.org.
Mar 12, 2012 at2:26 AM The globalization of non-profit work. This can intersect with transparency as there are a host of other laws that affect international work and donors require more transparency with international donations. At the same time, your money can go a lot further with an international component. Ms. JD started the Global Education Fund two years ago to provide scholarships to women attending law school in Uganda. To our knowledge, we are the only organization investing in higher education in Africa. This was the brainchild of Elizabeth Pederson, Ms. JD's founder and inaugural president. She would be an excellent speaker on these topics.
Mar 12, 2012 at11:50 AM The philanthropic and nonprofit sectors truly need a new approach to evaluation - as they experiment with, and test out new social, multi-actor innovations in complex environments. Our white paper on Social Innovation Evaluation will be coming out in May; a session on this topic (also known as Developmental Evaluation) would be of great value to attendees.
Mar 13, 2012 at12:49 PM I'd second Hallie's suggestion of strong data and evaluation content at the conference. I also wanted to say that I really appreciated IS's effort last year in Chicago to have the arts represented in a high profile way at the event, but I would love to see more integration of arts organizations' perspectives into the actual sessions, not just to add entertainment value to the proceedings. I noticed a couple of examples of this here and there but we were definitely pretty few and far between. I'm hopeful that having Nancy Glaze on the host committee in such a vibrant creative community as the San Francisco Bay Area will be conducive to strong arts representation this year.
Mar 13, 2012 at2:49 PM Michelle, Katie, Hallie, and Ian - Really great ideas. Many of these topics are already being mulled over by our Program Committee, but we will absolutely add your comments to the list for their review. Thank you, and we hope to see you in San Francisco this Fall!
Mar 14, 2012 at2:59 PM Similar to how working in silos across functional areas is not a best practice or hinders effectiveness, does placing individuals in silos (by age, experience, education, etc) lead to not having a lower producing team? Even with all the great research done on generations and how individuals from those generations look at things differently, does this cause some barrier to entry for younger generations?
Mar 15, 2012 at1:50 PM Hi Andrea - Thanks for the suggestion. I'll pass it along. Also, make sure to check out our NGen Pre-Conference Program for emerging leaders under 40. Details coming soon. http://www.independentsector.org/ngen_at_the_conference
Mar 16, 2012 at12:52 PM IF you are interested, we would be delighted to share a model for business capacity building we have developed at Altruist Partners LLC. It is the product of a long collaboration among respected leaders in the for- and non-profit space, and we're trying to "open source" a simple, concise method to show any non-profit how to maximize its income across every revenue domain: individuals, foundations, governments, corporations, AND earned income.
In direct work with organizations, we've consistently increased revenue 100% in the first fiscal year.
Now that the model is proven and refined, we want to share it. For free. The idea is to solve what we believe is the largest problem in the non-profit sector: the lack of affordable, best-practice business assistance.
Happy to chat more as you wish. Thank you!
Mar 16, 2012 at4:16 PM We at FSG would love to think with you all in a session on the “Power Dynamics of Collective Impact.” We've been seeing lots of interesting dynamics in our consulting engagements- roles of nonprofits, funders, and government-, and would love to bring in some panelists to open up conversation on this topic and hear what you're experiencing on the ground.
Mar 21, 2012 at1:33 PM Thank you, Donald and Emily. I'll pass these suggestions along. Hope to see you in November in San Francisco!
Mar 28, 2012 at4:19 PM Hi Kristina,
A few peopled have brought this conference to my attention and would be keen to learn more about the panels. As Michelle mentioned above, our organization has built the first crowdsourcing platform that gives 100% directly to cause that could save nonprofits millions of dollars in lost admin fees to sites that charge for this service.
I have spoken about this at numerous other conferences and would be happy to learn more about becoming a Game Changer at Independent Sector as I think our view would be a great value fit for your organization and we are also based in San Francisco.
You can view our site here: http://www.groundworkopportunities.org/
Many thanks for the consideration and I look forward to hearing from you shortly.
Yours in Progress,
Bart
Mar 30, 2012 at2:31 PM Hi Bart - Thank you for your comment and ideas. Your comment will be added to the mix. Hope to see you in November!