My experience at the Bridge Conference today was a bit different than yesterday since I was a volunteer room monitor for the session track on Foundation & Corporate Partnerships all day. I called myself trying to be strategic with the track I picked since those are the 2 main types of fundraising that I do and I love both of them! I was tasked with helping the speakers with room set-up and collecting evaluation forms at the end of each session. Once again, we were met with 3 more sessions today that provided practical insight and fundraising tips as well as time for discussion and networking. I was pleasantly surprised that the level of quality stayed pretty high for even on the last day of the conference.
Norma Galfassi blew my socks off! She talked about Successful Corporate Partnerships and used a great Powerpoint presentation to show us lots of examples of corporations partnering with nonprofits that we could learn from. She made the distinction that all corporate giving is not really a ‘partnership’ unless the company is engaged and integrated with your mission. For instance, sponsorships are pretty much one-off checks for events, while true partnerships are more beneficial to nonprofits and can last a lot longer, especially when the company helps your organization fundraise for other dollars elsewhere. Norma mentioned companies who contribute a percentage of sales, send out donation inserts to their clients with their own communications, or invest in TV ads highlighting a nonprofit with their brand. She taught me something very important today: nonprofits need not be afraid to speak in corporate language if we want to engage businesses in our work. The very best part of the session was the role-play we did in pairs to practice “pitching” the benefits of what we could offer businesses to the other person. It felt weird simply talking about what we could give them rather than our mission and the touchy-feely stuff. But Norma stressed that we needed to do this if we want to be effective. Thanks, Norma! I’m definitely going to try this the next time I meet with a corporate exec.
Kay Sprinkel Grace talked about a deeper, more engaged model of corporate partnerships that we all strive for. Her presentation on A New View of Corporate Engagement contrasted both Norma’s and Barbara Schroeder’s from yesterday nicely. Kay’s session was a bit too cerebral for me, but the focus on values and mission marketing was refreshing because it aligns more with the nature of fundraising, which is to appeal to emotion and community need. Even if it’s just a dream to aspire to when we go out to attract corporate support, Kay was good to urge us to consider a focus on values in building our partnerships.
Eugene Scanlan gave the final presentation on Foundation Funding from the Bottom Up. This was by far the most basic of all the sessions, which resulted in many attendees leaving the room halfway through the session. I’m not sure why the planning committee chose to place Eugene at the end, since it was clearly a session geared toward newbie fundraisers. His Powerpoint presentation also left much to be desired – too many slides with too many words, all with information the audience already knew. I was hoping to snag a few tips out of the session so I asked a lot of questions, but I really didn’t get much by way of new information. Again, it was definitely designed to be a good session for beginning fundraisers but was too basic for most of the folks in the room. It was a nice cap on the day, though to know that I’m basically doing everything right in terms of foundation fundraising!
Overall, my experience with the Bridge Conference was very positive and I will definitely attend next year. I brought home with me tons of new ideas and strategies that I can apply in my fundraising strategy I am currently developing for FY2008! It’s so wonderful to see how professionalized the fundraising field is, and I am even more excited and motivated to continue in this career path. With so many colleagues to learn from, I can only get better with time.
Also, be sure to check out more juicy Bridge Conference highlights from Don’t Tell the Donor!
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