"Three weeks ago, I attended the first Nonprofit Congress National Meeting to be held in the country. I was in Washington, D.C. as part of a ten-person delegation from Kentucky. Our Kentucky group joined over 400 other nonprofit representatives from 47 states to spend two days deciding on three priorities for the nonprofit sector.
It was a last-minute decision to attend, but I was intrigued by the concept and once there, was impressed by the process. I had been skeptical about whether or not 400 people, over two days, could accomplish setting priorities and then come away with some very clear plans.
We worked together and met our goal! The power was incredible. We were inspired, motivated and left with the knowledge of what we needed to do in order to take action in our states.
We first started narrowing the field down to three priorities:
Nonprofit Organizational Effectiv-eness (focusing on accountability and leadership)
Advocacy and Grassroots Commu-nity Activities
Public Awareness and Support of the Nonprofit Sector.
Having a collective voice on these three action items has so much potential for the future of nonprofits nationally, within our state and in our own local communities. The latter part of the second day was spent with our Kentucky delegates to brainstorm and select our action steps surrounding the priorities. We discussed many possibilities, and after several hours we established Kentucky's goals as follows:
Establish, distribute and support guiding principles and recommended practices for accountability and effective management of nonprofit organizations.
Continue efforts to collect statewide salary and benefits information to equip nonprofits with data to market the benefits of working in the nonprofit sector.
Explore mentoring programs for executives new to the sector and host job fairs across Kentucky to educate students and other potential employees about employment opportunities in the nonprofit sector.
Engage legislators in dialogue with Kentucky's nonprofit sector and expand efforts to unite and create a collective voice for Kentucky's nonprofit organizations through the second annual Kentucky Day at the Capitol scheduled for February 8, 2007.
Begin steps to launch a public awareness campaign aimed at educating the commonwealth on the social and economic value of the nonprofit sector.
It is an aggressive agenda to say the least. The passion and determination that fueled the Nonprofit Congress meeting is motivation that will get the job done. A special recognition to Danielle Clore, executive director of the Nonprofit Leadership Initiative at the University of Kentucky, for her ongoing coordination of the Nonprofit Congress work in our state. As Clore explained, "Being reactive and doing more with less is unacceptable — the future of our communities is at stake. The Nonprofit Congress reiterated that we must use our collective voice to say nonprofits are one-tenth of the economy, we are accountable, we are the backbone of our communities and we must be at the table when decisions are being made that impact quality of life on a local, state and national level. We invite nonprofit organizations and those who support the sector to join with Nonprofit Leadership Initiative to strengthen and unify our voice in Kentucky."
I hope to share more on the Nonprofit Congress as we reconvene on our Capitol Day in Frankfort in February 2007. The second Nonprofit Congress national conference will be held in Washington in spring 2008 and, as a result of the first one, will certainly be on my calendar.
For more information regarding the Nonprofit Congress, Many Missions, One Voice check out www.nonprofitcongress.org.
Kathy Plomin is president and chief professional officer of United Way of the Bluegrass.