Plan your work, work your plan:
It’s Fall in the Tetons. The leaves have been exceptional this year, but as the month progresses, so do the changes at the heart of this season. The colors are muting and blowing away, while a skiff of snow dusts the high county. Folks are putting up wood and animals are attending to their stores for the winter ahead. In the same vein, we’ve been busy expanding our nonprofits’ resources, knowledge base, and best practices to give them plenty to work with over the long winter months.
In the last month, the Community Foundation has hosted a variety of workshops covering Board Development, Donor Retention, Creating a Fund Development Plan and Green Event Planning. These classes were helpful for both nonprofit staff and board members alike. No matter where their organization sits on the nonprofit life cycle, these workshops gave local community leaders tools and strategies that will equate to big gains with proper cultivation.
Convening at the Community Foundation provides an incredible opportunity for these organizations to come together to share ideas, what’s working, where difficulties lie, and to network with each other. Having knowledgeable, experienced instructors leading these workshops helps facilitate the conversation and provide proven resources and tools they can implement going forward.
Topics covered included connection to cause, roles and responsibilities, fundraising, and the culture of philanthropy to name a few. The take-home message for participants was to plan ahead, on all fronts, and then work the plan. Sound advice for all of us as we gather our resources and head into the season of planning, programming and strategizing. After a winter’s worth of germinating, these ideas are sure to come to fruition and nourish our community going forward.
