Independent Sector’s 2009 Conference: The Good, the Bad and the Big Blog Roundup

This year, it was really hard for me to get to the Independent Sector Annual Conference. For free. A little wheedling did the trick, thanks to social media cheerleader Megan Hoot and my organization which footed the bill for my travel to the Motor City. So I know how impossible it was for a lot of young nonprofit leaders who would have liked to attend, but couldn’t due to cost. I’m giving you this roundup so you can get a sense of what happened there. Several bloggers as well as news organizations covered the events, so collectively we all provide a very good picture!

The Good:

Location, location, location. Downtown Detroit was a great choice – it’s a diverse city with interesting economic and social change models happening right now. The conference site was close to entertainment, nightlife, and affordable restaurants near the hotel. I wish I could’ve stayed longer!
Conference food = yummy. I am a picky eater, and there was something for everyone. We had hearty breakfasts, tasty lunches, and a nice wine and cheese break in between.
One word: NGen. Conference organizers did a great job this year with planning more interactive and relevant sessions for nonprofit leaders under 40. It was a good educational and networking opportunity for all the younger folks to come together as an identified group and learn together.
Exposure to the local Detroit nonprofit sector, all the way down to the youth jazz ensemble that performed for us. The conference program also offered opportunities for participants to go on site visits accompanied by local leaders.
Major networking opportunities. There was a 30 minute break in between each session, which allowed for lots of “hallway” conversations. I was able to meet and get introduced to a ton of folks during the 3 days I was there. I gave out a lot of cards and learned a lot of “insider” information about new initiatives brewing or new projects to look out for. And, as always, there was the normal industry gossip. You have to know what’s going on in the field as a whole, outside of your organization. Independent Sector is known for being THE place where connections are made – especially with funders.
New conference formats, especially the live, in-person FutureLabs that were just too cool. I blogged about my FutureLab experience here. I hope more conferences start to experiment with new models of delivering sessions with more interactivity!

The Bad:

No wi-fi. Marriott is known for having shoddy internet access and conference organizers should have been aware of this. It was often difficult for folks to tweet and blog the happenings due to lack of internet connectivity. I thankfully had my trusty Verizon wireless PC card that worked like a charm.
Too many Baby Boomer speakers. While there was a huge NGen contingent of young nonprofit leaders at the conference – 20% of attendees in fact – none of the plenary speakers for any of the large breakfast, lunch or dinner panels were under 40. I guess you can count Benjamin Jealous from the NAACP, but that was still not representative enough for a conference with 1,100 people and so many opportunities to hear the younger perspective on a host of issues. I feel that Independent Sector could have reached out to the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) and/or Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) to obtain a few speakers under 40. For a conference with a future-looking theme, it should have been a priority to share the voices of future leaders.
Diana Aviv made a patronizing joke about young people right before her keynote speech on Thursday. It went something like, “We’re in the home of Motown, home to artists such as Stevie Wonder, etc. I’m sure the NGeners know all about that.” Laughter from the audience. I know it was just a joke, but comments like these are why it’s so hard for Baby Boomers to take the next generation seriously and therefore invite us to speak on panels as mentioned in item #2 above. Some of us are the same age as your kids, but that doesn’t mean you get to patronize us. I’m sure no one would have appreciated any old people jokes from the younger folks.

The Big Blog Roundup:

Questions for Emerging Leaders: After Moving Up, What’s Next? (Rosetta Thurman)
We Have to Drop Our Gang Colors: Ten Leaders Envision the Future of the Nonprofit Sector (Rosetta Thurman)
Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes on Values, Impact and Accountability (Rosetta Thurman)
Creating the Future of the Nonprofit Sector Through 2020 (Rosetta Thurman)
IS/CMF 2009 Conference: A group conversation with Geoffrey Canada (Neel Hajra, CEO of NEW)
Independent Sector / CMF 2009 – the First 24 hours (Neel Hajra, CEO of NEW)
Independent Sector / CMF Pre-Conference (Tuesday) (Neel Hajra, CEO of NEW)
Independent Sector / CMF Conference, DETROIT STYLE!! (Neel Hajra, CEO of NEW)
Working Effectively with Every Generation – IS Conference (Lakshmi Karan, Skoll Foundation)
Insights on Corporate Foundations (Lakshmi Karan, Skoll Foundation)

Two Twitter Feeds:

#iscmf09
#isngen (coverage of the NGen portion of the conference)

News outlets Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nonprofit Times and Crain’s Detroit Business also provided coverage of the conference. See? It’s almost like you were there with us.

Please add any additional blog posts in the comments! I really want to hear what others thought of the conference this year.

http://www.kresge.org Mandy Valentine

Diana Aviv’s joke really irritated me (and a couple of other NGen/younger audience members). What was the real irony to me is that the artists she mentioned (Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder) are more iconic for the baby boomer generation than the current one. Heck, I think Marvin Gaye died before some of the NGen participants were even born. In the same breath she was also rather dismissive of social media. I think it was proof that IS (or at least some in IS) don’t even understand who the next gen is.

I also just wanted to say thanks for the great NGen track coverage, I would have loved to be there (especially as someone who lives and works in Metro Detroit) but had other work duties. I did get to spend Thursday at the conference.
Bao Vang

rosetta, too bad about the joke by Diana Aviv. It shows me how out of touch IS is compared to the larger and broader nonprofit sector. I saw a tweet from the IS conference that this was the first year that Diana Aviv was more animated during her keynote (I wonder who has been giving her feedback on her public speaking style?). anyways, I would encourage you to look at IS’s Future Lab, especially around the topic of Leadership. It is very disturbing and not representative of the field. We (as in all nonprofit leaders of any sized nonprofit organization) need to speak out about this size issue (in terms of bigger is better) as well as this assumption that there is no talent in the sector (only the leaders who are currently in authority are gods!).

Bao
http://www.nonprofitleadership601.blogspot.com Heather Carpenter

Rosetta:

Thanks for the round up about the IS conference. It was great to read about your experience. Sorry to hear about Diana’s comment, however let’s recognize how far IS has come in the last few years to now include NGENers and bloggers in the conference. Yes, there is still more that can be done but IS has worked hard to provide funding and support so that NGENers can be included in the conference experience.

Also, I’m pleased to announce that the ARNOVA conference will welcome bloggers and tweeters for the first time at this year’s conference!! A step forward indeed!
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