Calendar

Social media is a great tool to get the word out about your programs, but that’s only the beginning. Build strong communities through social media by creating meaningful conversations online and providing relevant, consistent information. This session will give you the tools to create your own social media plan, including tools for measuring success and templates for managing it all.

This breakout session is part of the full day conference. Registration for the full day is required.

This session is sponsored by the Professional Association for Computer Training (PACT) and is part of their monthly membership meeting. Registered guests are welcome.

Podcasts are exploding as a way to reach new audiences with deeper engagement than other content marketing channels like blogs or social posts. As nearly all adults now have smartphones in their pockets, the question turns to just what will they listen to while on the go?

Capturing audience early and establishing a reliable channel to reach people can earn new supporters, use new content to introduce nonprofit missions to audiences and leverage market growth (according to Pew Research, podcast downloads have gone from 1.6 billion in 2012 to 2.6 billion in 2014) to grow learning impact. This session will cover the basics of the market, how podcasts fit within a range of content strategies to engage learners, demonstrate equipment and tools, and talk about effective strategies such as publishing frequency, target markets, hosting and editing. To learn more, listen to the podcast about podcasting.

Foundations and corporations have a disproportionate impact on the direction of social sector work to the resources they contribute. Individual donors don’t yet change the direction of nonprofit work, but they could if they knew their own power.

Nonprofits know the drill. Foundations or large corporate funders go into a new strategic planning session and come out with the announcement: We are now going to fund X! All our support will help solve the problem of X! Charities then immediately begin the chorus “We solve X! We are the best at solving X!”

Even if that means recasting years of work trying to solve Y.

Social good organizations chase large dollars because it seems like the majority of small donors don’t have a collective voice at the table, so institutional philanthropy becomes the loudest sound about problems to solve. The vast majority of donated supported comes from individuals (http://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2016/) but those people aren’t seen as a collective voice with collective power, but rather as scattered, reactive voices.

That can change.

We now have tools to anonymize, collect, aggregate and understand the power of crowds, and it may be that institutional philanthropy will end up assuming a degree of influence commensurate with their financial support. It requires a willingness for charities to embrace the idea that their donors are worth this trust, and to learn how to share power with them.

There are steps necessary for local communities to begin emerging the voices of collective philanthropy, including:
1. Understanding their own data collection and anonymizing practices
2. Selecting emerging standards for sharing data about organizations, such as BRIDGE.
3. Uniting data across giving, including efforts such as #GivingTuesday.
4. Empowering both charities and donors to contribute to evaluation efforts and transparency, uniting both support and outcomes.

This event is copsonsored by the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and the International Association of Business Communicators

The social media world continues to drastically change at a breakneck speed. So far, 2016 has brought memorable changes with adoption of live social broadcasts, expansion of social media ads, a surge in video marketing, notable updates in feed algorithms and much more. With rapidly changing social media trends, it is enough to make our heads spin! How do nonprofits communicators with limited staff and resources, keep up and stay ahead to ensure they are reaching their audiences to increase engagement, mobilize social action or increase donations?

This workshop will offer tips and tools for social media that nonprofits need to know, need to be doing now and leverage what is in store for 2017.

This workshop is part of the 2016 Nonprofit Communicator Workshop Series, Multiplying your Message: Exponential Impact.

Join Steve Boland of Next in Nonprofits for an active session on using social media to build an audience that shares your message and helps other to move to action. That action may be a sale, a donation, attending an event or more, but no business or charity should be satisfied with just a number of followers. Steve will demonstrate using native measurement tools (social analytics) in each platform to understand what engages specific follower audiences best, and how and when to use targeted “promoted posts” (advertising) to reach very specific new audiences at very low costs.

(This session is part of a day-long conference on Communications and Technology. This session will be at 3 PM. Registration for the full day is required.)

Podcasts are usually current programs distributed using a tool like iTunes or Stitcher. This technology is usually used to communicate a few current episodes and the old ones are archived. The tools can be used to syndicate learning content that may be used over and over for new audiences, as well as refreshers for existing staff, volunteers or other community supporters. By the end of this sessions, attendees will:

1) Understand podcast syndication, and how most podcasts are used.

2) Design ongoing use cases for this medium, solving existing training or learning distribution.

3) Create metrics for measuring effectiveness and participation.
Steve Boland, Managing Partner, Next in Nonprofits and Liz Caspersen, Program Chair, Professional Association for Computer Training (PACT).

This session is part of the 2017 Minnesota Council of Nonprofits Annual Conference. Attendees must be registered for the conference. 

The nonprofit sector has never been under more pressure to innovate and adapt to a shifting environment. Yet current funding for innovation rarely reflects the type of capital seen in traditional VC, tech startups, or even challenges like Y-Combinator and our local MN Cup.   Join Damon Runnals, former Executive Director for the Southern Theater, as he discusses learning points from the creation of ARTshare – the Twin Cities first all access performing arts membership program. This session will look at if what it might look like if foundational support took more chances and was similar to what the  tech sector has come to expect in their innovative endeavors. This workshop will examine strategies for going without funding and explore the risks involved when launching major initiatives while still running your nonprofit. Lastly, this session will discuss what other / newer sources of revenue can be generated to support new programs.
Track: Innovation
Damon Runnals, Constructive Consultant, Next In Nonprofits, Minneapolis, MN; Jamie Schumacher, Executive Director, West Bank Business Association