Today is the first day of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits Future of Leadership Conference. I got into town late last evening and appreciated all the time I had on the plane from DC to read and sleep. This morning I found that I was really eager to get the party started when I showed up for the first session an hour early, forgetting about the one hour time difference. This morning we will talk about doing leadership development as practitioners, and I can’t wait to hear what other people are doing in their organizations. Some of you may know that I’m directing a new leadership development program at my organization called the Future Executive Directors Fellowship. Our pilot class will be 25 of the DC region’s best and brightest nonprofit professionals who want to become a nonprofit CEO in the future. And my dear fellow blogger Michele Martin is going to be our lead faculty! I’m TOO excited. The deadline for applications was May 30, and they just kept pouring in. All told, we received 113 applications! So the selection phase will be a busy one this next month. I also began teaching my first nonprofit management course at Trinity University. I have seven students over the summer and we’re learning all about nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Many of my students want to learn about this kind of marketing, but they can’t see themselves actually doing it for a living. A sad shame, but you’ve heard the story before: one young woman raised her hand last week and said, “I would like to work in a nonprofit doing communications, but the money issue is a big downside for me. ” Hey, believe me, I know we all need to pay our bills! But I took that opportunity to tell her about the kinds of positions that actually could pay a fair salary in our sector. Hopefully she will give one of our local nonprofits a shot. We could use her talent.
And speaking of talent, our friend Loryn Wilson, (fellow blogger from the nonprofit compensation show I did on BlogTalkRadio) finally found a job! Loryn is now working as a Communications Associate for the Center for Progressive Leadership.
While I often rail about the challenges facing our sector, I also like to celebrate when we do find our way and make space for real change to happen for our communities. So I couldn’t be more excited about all of the changemakers I will meet here in Minnesota. I can’t convince the whole world to work in a nonprofit, but I can keep telling our story, one that Frank Lopez shared with us so beautifully at the Nonprofit Congress last week:
There are three truths in life.
- I was born; no one can deny the fact that I was born.
- I will die; no one can change the fact that I will die.
- I have a choice of how I want to live my life, and how I live it can make the world better or worse.
I choose to make it better.
