It would be a major understatement to say that I had a great time in Austin this week. Texas showed me so much love, yo. I’m sad I had to leave so soon! But I had to get right back to DC to facilitate the opening retreat for the Future Executive Directors Fellowship. I wanted to share my experiences in Austin with you dear readers because one of my own personal development goals is to start reflecting more about what I learn and do in my travels, so this post might be a little different in that way.
First off, much love to Ann Starr and the whole team from Greenlights for Nonprofit Success, who invited me to talk about leadership at their annual conference, which they held this year in a new partnership with OneStar Foundation, combining the Greenlights’ Crossroads Conference and the Governor’s Nonprofit Leadership Conference to form the Texas Nonprofit Summit. Ann is definitely one of those forward-thinking, “ruthless innovators” that I reference in my speech about new leaders for a new nonprofit sector. In fact, the entire conference was based around the theme of “Igniting a Nonprofit Revolution,” even down to keynote speakers like Vinay Bhagat, founder of Convio and Dan Pallotta, author of Uncharitable.
More about them later. First, let me tell you about the food.
Tex-Mex with YNPN Austin
The ladies of YNPN Austin were kind enough to pick me up from the airport and serve as my hosts when I got into town. Cheryl, Karissa, Meredith and Kristi showed me and my inner foodie a good time at Chuy’s, a Tex-Mex spot where I had the best chicken enchiladas ever in my life. Not to mention the creamy jalapeno dip which was pretty much the “liquid crack” that Cheryl said it was. Also, fantastic margaritas that cost like $3.50, which was reverse sticker shock to someone coming from the high drink prices in DC! But let me show you just how fun and kitschy Chuy’s was…
…from the car with chips and dips in the hood
…to the most delicious chicken enchiladas ever (also, avocado sauce)
… to the bust of Elvis by the door. Good times!
Much love to the YNPN Austin ladies for being so gracious in showing me part of their town. I can’t wait to come back to try some Mexican “interior” food next time!
My First Time at the Westin
I don’t know what I was more excited about actually, speaking at the Summit or that I got to stay at the Westin for the first time! We’ll call it a tie. The Westin was an amazing hotel. All fancy everything. They even give you a big fluffy robe and my favorite, an iPod dock! So I was able to relax to the sounds of Jill Scott in the bathtub as I reflected on what I was going to say in my speech the next morning. What was crazy to me was that in Austin the weather is still warm (yes, I’m a fall hater), so their pool was actually still open. I wished I had brought my bathing suit!
Notes from the Summit
First, we got an overview of the Texas nonprofit sector. Interesting stats shared by OneStar Foundation: 71,000 nonprofits in Texas, 4.4 million volunteers, $16.8 billion in nonprofit wages. From what the YNPN ladies told me about there being 7,000 nonprofits in Austin means that about 10% of the state’s nonprofits reside there.
Vinay Bhagat was a perfect speaker for the opening keynote. Vinay is the founder of Convio and a fantastic advocate for new ways of thinking in the sector. His keynote was about the future of fundraising and he shared some very interesting data from Convio research about giving.
The last 10 years
- 2 major financial crises
- New donor acquisition down 20%
- Online giving began
The next 10 years
- Generationally-tailored marketing becoming more effective
- Direct marketing will still exist, but not dominate
- Peer-to-peer marketing will be a top strategy
- Social media will become mainstream
Other interesting stats:
- 86% of donors visit a nonprofit’s website before making an OFFline gift
- Only 8% of donors are inspired by websites/email
Giving by generation:
- 80% of Silents give
- 67% of Boomers give
- 60% of Gen Xers give
- 56% of Gen Y gives
- Gen Xers give average of $800/year
- Gen Yers give average of $300/year
Download the full Convio report here to see the data on how four generations of Americans give and the implications for nonprofits trying to reach these distinct age segments.
I also got to meet Dan Pallotta for the first time, who was the lunchtime keynote speaker. I’ve had mixed feelings about Dan’s ideas ever since I did a paper on Pallotta Teamworks in grad school where I was apalled to learn how little of the money they raised went to the actual charities from the AIDS Rides. Since then, Dan has been a student of the nonprofit sector and has developed some ideas that I agree with (the need for more innovation and pushing back on the idea that low overhead = nonprofit effectiveness) and many that I don’t (salaries that are comparable to the for-profit sector and generally becoming more like businesses). So it was great to meet him in person. I walked up to introduce myself and the first thing he said was that he’d read something that characterized the two of us as complete opposites in terms of nonprofit thought leadership: nonprofit liberal vs. nonprofit conservative. I believe he was talking about Collen Dilenschneider’s recent post here. We spoke for a bit, and the one thing I came away with was that he and I have more nonprofit ideals in common than I thought. Although we certainly don’t agree on everything, Dan’s is an important voice to have on the national stage to continue to push the sector along in a new direction for sure.
Want to see the full keynotes from the Summit? You can watch the video stream from the conference here.
My Breakout Session(s)
The way that the conference was set up, I did my same breakout session twice for two of the time slots during the conference. There were 700 total attendees at the conference, but I was still surprised at the turnout for my session. We had a full room, which had to be at least 75 folks. It was exciting that so many people wanted to hear new ideas about nonprofit leadership!
Most of the time I use Powerpoint when I speak, but this time I went way low-tech with basically just me, the audience and the microphone thingy that clips on to your pants. I went back and forth about whether to open up my session with my personal experience in coming to the nonprofit sector. I always debate whether to tell the audience where I really came from, after being introduced as someone with a Master’s degree in nonprofit management, blah blah blah. It’s not until the final moment that I decide to tell my story or not. These days, it’s more often than not. I’m embracing my background as part of who I am today. Living in poverty when I was growing up is what shaped my experience in this world and therefore how I view things in it.
I used to get really nervous when I first started doing speaking engagements. But now that I’ve done like 50 of them, I don’t get nervous so much as focused on making sure I give the best speech I can and hope that it inspires someone to think differently or do their work better. Another one of my goals when I speak is to be as authentic as possible in how I show up in the room. The moment I catch myself trying to mimic someone more establshed or stick to the “safe route,” I’m doomed. Success is when I say what I came there to say in my own way.
Another way that I measure the success of my speaking engagements is by how many people come up to me afterward. I shook at least two dozen hands, so I guess I done good! In both sessions, many people came up to me and thanked me for sharing my story and told me their own stories. Thank you, a million times over for that. Often we think that when we meet someone at a conference or whatever, our brief exchange is but a fleeting moment that’s quickly forgotten. Yet many of your stories stay with me long afterward. Even now, as I’m typing this on the plane back to DC on my tiny little netbook, I’m thinking about Christian Yazdanpanah, who manages student programs at the Volunteer Center of North Texas. Christian told me about how he’d recently returned to Austin from New York to do the work that he feels he was put here on earth to do. He quoted from some of my blog posts that he’d read and said that my presentation had validated his own ideas and inspired him to keep going in doing the work of social change. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.
So, shoutout to Christian and all my other blog readers that I met in Austin. You may say that I inspire you, but it’s really the other way around.
I am inspired, daily, by all of you. Thank you for continuing to read and share and invite me into your world.
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