The “Bridge” between marketing and fundraising started here in DC just a few years ago. This year about 700 nonprofit professionals poured into the event (www.dmaw.org) to engage in 8 or 9 education tracks ranging from associations to the arts to social media and then some. Participants reported a high value in creative ideas, political impact assessment, and social media ideas. The speaker lineup was terrific and I can only imagine the challenge faced by the committees with such high quality material to choose from. I spoke to a number of nonprofit professionals from early career to the deeply experienced and sensed high satisfaction in their day’s experience. Well done, DMAW and AFP!
One of my more satisfactory conversations was this evening’s contact with Parie Kadir of The Global Fund for Children and Showleh Tolbert of Girls Incorporated of Orange County, CA. Their passion for their work and its impact on the world just glows from them, and reminds me all over again of why I work with nonprofits. We exchange business cards as I promise to connect Parie to the speaker she missed and Showleh to a client who may collaborate with them…and the world seems a little smaller and more hopeful for the moment.
Afterward, I had the opportunity to chat a few minutes to NBC journalist Reggie Johnson who has been pursuing stories on the economic challenges facing our nonprofits…from postage increases to general recession. I can’t wait to see his reports based on the interviews I heard about!
