As many of you know, every Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), kicks off with a Day of Service, which provides NTEN members the opportunity to volunteer their talents to help local nonprofits. This is my first time volunteering, but my boss, John Dukovich, participated in the D.C. Day Service in 2007. I’ve enjoyed this process, I learned a lot, and it just plain feels good knowing that I hopefully helped make someone else’s job a little easier.
The process couldn’t be any easier:
- Check of a box on the registration form saying that you’d like to volunteer.
- An NTEN rep, in this case, Beth Kanter, emails you a list of local nonprofits that are in need of assistance.
- Choose a non-profit organization whose issue most fits your expertise. This year John chose a small, community environmental non-profit.
- We were given their contact information and emailed them for specific information.
- Then we hit the ground running.
We started the first process about a month before NTC to give ourselves enough time for research. They needed assistance in choosing the correct donation software, and they also wanted to know how to market that software to their supporters.
It’s a few days away from NTC’10 and we’re ready for the presentation…that’s a good feeling! Thanks to NTEN and Idealwares’ 2009 Consumer’s Guide Low cost Guide to Donor Management Systems, the research was a snap. The guide listed the best rated software, and I was able to match our Day of Service non-profit’s needs with the guide’s top rated software to come up with seven potential donor management systems. This guide was a godsend for my research.
I also participated in a three webinars, so that I could pass along tips and recommend low cost emailing software and marketing ideas to our non profit. I summarized my new knowledge and made PDFs. John took all of the information we both gathered and created a PowerPoint presentation and an Excel spreadsheet to present on the Day of Service. He also downloaded all of our materials and reference documents onto a flash drive so that our nonprofit will have an eco friendly take away from the Day of Service.
We’re excited for the face-to-face meeting, and we’re confident that we’ve given our non-profit client valuable information that they can implement into their organization. Our non-profit’s client’s website shows that they already have great ideas, and they engage their community through creative and constructive events and services. We hope that we can make their job easier, so that they have more time and money to spend on helping the environment and bettering their community. I’m looking forward to feedback from our non-profit organization, but I’m especially looking forward to next year’s Day of Service.
Check back for Duke’s Grog for Part Two, which will be John’s review on the Day of Service.