Nonprofit Congress

i can edit it ?In my 30 years of leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago I've seen several discouraging trends.

a) only those organizations with the best marketing or with celebrity leaders get consistent attention and funding.

b) media and public leaders don't talk about a problem, or a solution, every day, the way advertisers talk about their products every day and in many ways

c) when negative news, like a shooting, or the school report card, or a school closing, is reported, the media only focus on a few places where the news occurred, rather than all of the places in the city where similar bad news happens every week

d) when media do write about a social benefit response, they tend to only focus on a few brand name solutions, or a few high profile neighborhoods

We need to change this if we're to support the growth of non profits doing good work in all of the areas where such work is needed.

One strategy to support this change of thinking is to use demographic maps of a community to show all of the places where there are poorly performing schools, or where there is high poverty. Every time media or public leaders talk about a problem, and point to a single neighborhood, people who comment on the news can use blogs and other media to show how that problem is in multiple places.

You can get the word out about your organization's activities as well as your opinions on legislation or policy by writing a good op-ed or letter to the editor. Need some guidance? Check out this great article from the Connecticut Health Policy Project's website.

DoGooderTV has announced the finalists for the Nonprofit Video Awards sponsored by NTEN and See3! Watch the finalists' videos on the DooGooderTV website and cast your vote for the winners in 3 categories: Best PSA, best short video, and best long video. The winners will be announced at the 2008 NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans. You can also watch the videos that didn't become finalists and learn more about the celebrity judges.

The Center for Nonprofit Management, Dallas convened nonprofits throughout North Texas to come together at the Nonprofit Town Hall: A Call to Action for a discussion with Mayor Leppert and to address the three top national priorities for the U.S. nonprofit sector established at the Nonprofit Congress.

Mayor Tom Leppert was the special guest and the Center for Nonprofit Management led a 45 minute conversation about nonprofits, the critical community issues they address and their role in the city of Dallas. The Town Hall meeting was held on Wednesday, January 16, 2008.

Center leaders outlined the top priorities for the sector: organizational effectiveness, public awareness, and advocacy. Participants identified what we are currently doing to address the Top Priorities, learned what others are doing that can further support the common vision we have developed and discuss how we can support each other in our efforts.

Nonprofit and community leaders discussed the priorities and focused on developing ideas for raising the profile of the sector. The participants developed a list of 60 ideas in the broad areas of social impact, economic impact, collaborations, events, media and messages.

The Center for Nonprofit Management (www.cnmdallas.org) in Dallas, Texas has developed the Awards of Excellence, which acknowledge the outstanding contributions the nonprofit sector makes to the community. To recognize and celebrate organizations and individuals that exemplify distinctive achievement in nonprofit management, $5,000 awards are presented.

The organizational Awards are presented in four categories ranging from Excellence in Mission Achievement to Excellence in Communications and Innovation in Action. Two individuals are also recognized for Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership (presented to an Executive Director/CEO) and Excellence in Board Leadership (presented to a Board Chair).

The Awards are presented annually at an awards dinner, A Night of Light. Now in its seventh year, the event has awarded 39 agencies and individuals with $5,000 cash awards, a giving total of $195,000.

The Center for Nonprofit Management, serving more than 1,300 nonprofit organizations annually, works to build stronger communities by increasing the performance and impact of nonprofit organizations.

For more information on the Center or the Awards of Excellence, visit www.cnmdallas.org.

I would like to invite everyone to visit www.NonprofitPR.com, a public service site for nonprofits, that we launched in conjunction with the Nonprofit Congress in October 2006.

Hannah Brazee Gregory
Shoestring Creative Group

Knowing key local leaders is invaluable to your nonprofit. Test yourself. How many of these individuals do you know on a first name basis? How many know you?

1. The top elected official in your community (city council chair, county board chair, mayor, etc.).
2. The local aides of your federal Senators.
3. Your Congressperson and his/her local aides.
4. Your state legislators.
5. The president of the biggest employer in town.
6. A business leader involved with the local Chamber of Commerce.
7. The president of the local United Way or community foundation.
8. The coordinator of a major nonprofit coalition in your region.
9. The leader of the largest local religious institution.
10. A reporter that covers local stories and nonprofits.

Thanks to Michael A. Sand, nonprofit guru and Nonprofit Congress Delegate, for the "first name basis" idea.

For a great example of the power of social movements to bring about important social change, check out Bob Smucker's piece, "Promise, Progress, and Pain." Smucker reminds us, via the mental health movement of the 1960s-80s, that the significance of social movements transcends the here and now. Pointing to a critical example of the possibility of societal advancement and solidarity, his account is a model for all who seek to improve the lives of our global human community.

link to article: http://www.communitymentalhealthcasestudy.org/

-Chris

From an article in Business Week: Should volunteer work be calculated as an economic statistic? The U.N. has long thought so, citing the impact of volunteer projects on a country's social and economic development. But it lacked a systematic way to measure such work. Now the U.N.'s International Labour Organization, which oversees the gathering of labor data, is working with the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University to capture the information.

On April 30 and May 1, 2007, entrepreneurs from all over the state of Montana converged on the campus of Montana Tech in Butte for the Montana Economic Development Summit 2007. For the first time in the summit’s history, the nonprofit sector was represented in the discussion. The Montana Nonprofit Association, was invited to moderate a panel and present data from its second Montana Nonprofit Sector Report.

The North Carolina Center for Nonprofits and the Nonprofit Council of the New Bern Area Chamber of Commerce sponsored a “Virtual Shutdown” on June 6, 2007. About 100 nonprofit organizations and several county & city officials gathered to celebrate and perform the Virtual Shutdown with a moment of silence and roll call of local nonprofits.

For more information, check out the Council’s website or the article from the New Bern Sun Journal.

Profiles in Caring is a half hour, professionally produced television program highlighting amazing nonprofits who make profound differences in the lives of others.

They are seeking submissions for Fall programming and applications for four $10,000 Ambassadors in Caring grants. Key points:

The Wisconsin State Journal in Madison started a Nonprofit Advisory Board to help train and coach reporters and editors to cover the nonprofit sector accurately. 

UPDATE: The Wisconsin State Journal recently selected its 2007-2008 Nonprofit Advisory Board.

Recently, several states have declared nonprofit days, weeks and months. What a great way to get the word out about the sector! Here are a few examples:

From Guidestar’s e-newsletter: The 2007 Investigative Editors and Reporters Conference will feature a session on investigating nonprofits for media personnel.

Newspapers Must Be Taught to Cover Charities, is an editorial in the Chronicle of Philanthropy by Robert Egger, president of DC Central Kitchen. 

The Center for Nonprofit Advancement (in Washington, DC) and the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York have both developed award programs for local nonprofits in collaboration with major newspapers. In addition, PRNews sponsors Nonprofit PR Awards each year.

The Washington Post's Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management, a project of the Center for Nonprofit Advancement, started in 1994. Each year, the winning organization receives a cash prize ($10,000 in 2007) and one scholarship to the Georgetown University Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership’s Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program. 

The Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism spotlight news and information that is more than multimedia journalism. They reward novel efforts to involve citizens actively in public issues, to invite their participation and create entry points that stir their imagination and engagement.

Honored are pioneering approaches to journalism that:

• Encourage new forms of information sharing.
• Spur non-traditional interactions that have an impact on community.
• Enable new and better two-way conversations between audiences and news providers.
• Foster new ways of imparting useful information.

Entries could consist of such things as online news experiences, news games, novel uses of cell phones, Web cams, iPods, computer kiosks, new uses of software, content management systems and other advances in interactive or participatory journalism. Entries may also demonstrate simple efforts that notably connect in new ways with a community.

Entries from all media are eligible. Encouraged are both top-down and bottom-up innovations, those driven by news creators and those driven by news consumers.