It was an honor to give the keynote at the 2016 Nonprofit Communications Conference at Drury University and The Center for Nonprofit Leadership on Oct. 3, 2016. Hundreds gathered in Springfield, Mo., to improve their organization’s capacity to communicate.
Dan Prater (@Dan_Prater), the director of the Center for Nonprofit Leadership, brought together a diverse and talented group of people for the event. More than a dozen people contributed to presentations on a wide range of topics. Attendees included professionals from foundations, charities, faith-based institutions, government agencies, healthcare, education, the arts and associations. The four tracks included social media, internal communication, public relations/external communication, and leadership/governance.
I also made a presentation during a breakout session: Building A Volunteer Marketing Committee (Slide Deck). In addition to reviewing various ways to look for people with specific talents to help your organization, we also reviewed ways to structure marketing and communications.
During the breakout session, it was interesting to see many of attendees shared the same challenges and were implementing similar solutions at their organizations:
- Most were one-person departments.
- Many were already utilizing volunteers and committees to help them communicate.
- Many said the mere action of gathering people together to find resources helped create additional solutions.
The closing session was most informative. Several leaders from the nonprofit sector, business and media were asked five questions and given one minute to respond to each question. The participants gave great advice and insights for nonprofits after a day of learning new and innovative ways of communicating. It was a great ending after starting with the keynote, “Why Leaders Must Communicate and Communicators Must Lead.”
Summary of all 2016 Nonprofit Communications Conference Presentations, links to slide decks