Nonprofit Training Overview
 

interSector Partners, L3C is proud to offer its first trainings focused on helping nonprofits enhance organization sustainability. Whether through a stronger board, earned income strategies or better understanding your donor wants/needs, interSector’s trainings meet two bottom lines: building skill and having fun—all in support of your mission.

Each training is two to three hours in length can be expanded or condensed depending on your available time. We know one size does not fit all and will customize your training to ensure you get the absolute most out of our time together.

Duty Calls: Understanding the board’s legal duties and roles/responsibilities

interSector’s Duty Calls training is customized to the needs, experience and background of your organization’s board of directors. This education session is often provided to new boards, to established boards when new members are added or as a refresher for more experienced directors.

Not just your standard board roles and responsibilities training, Duty Calls integrates your board’s unique requirements and expectations to make for a comprehensive educational experience for your board. We help your board understand and appreciate its place in your organization and the nonprofit sector.

Intended audience: Single agency board of directors, community training for new board members from organizations with shared characteristics (chapters of a national group, arts agencies, etc.)

What’s the bottom line? Good candidates for this session are:

• Any board of directors that’s not sure what it’s really supposed to be doing
• A group that came together with a passion for the mission, but not necessarily an understanding of what it means to be a board
• A board that’s changed or added new members and wants everyone to be on the same page
• A board that consistently clashes with staff over who should be doing what

Who’s on Board? A training/facilitated discussion of the skills, qualifications and connections your board of directors needs

When it’s time for your board to grow or enhance its work on behalf of your nonprofit, Who’s on Board? will be a good choice for you. In this interactive training, boards develop a desired profile, analyze current skills, qualifications and backgrounds against the profile and learn what gaps need to be filled.

Who’s on Board? helps boards to not only define their desired profile, but also to create a plan for achieving the profile. Board members leave feeling excited and empowered to create the best possible board in pursuit of their mission.

Intended audience: Single agency board of directors or nominating committee

What’s the bottom line? This is a great session for you if you or your board colleagues ever say:

• We need more people on this board to share the work!
• If only we had a marketing person [trade: attorney, accountant, fundraiser] on the board, we’d be all set
• How can we get some diverse opinions on our board?
• We’ll never be able to leave this board if we don’t get some new people on here!

Fulfilling Fundraising: Helping board members understand and embrace their fundraising role

We start by defining and discussing fundraising expectations of boards of directors as well as the specifics of your board’s fundraising role. From there, we work with your board to define the stumbling blocks, fears and concerns related to fundraising and discuss ideas and plans for overcoming their fears.

Part training, part facilitated discussion, part fun and games, Fulfilling Fundraising will help your board members not only to understand their fundraising obligation, but also to take the first steps toward comfort and even eagerness to get out there and raise the resources your organization needs.


Intended audience: Single agency board of directors, community training


What’s the bottom line? Does your board need motivation to fundraise? Do directors need a couple tricks or new ideas about how to ask? Is there a perception on your board that fundraising be handled by staff? If the answer to any (or, gulp!, all) of these questions is yes, then let Fulfilling Fundraising get you on your way to a happier, healthier relationship with fundraising.

The Asset Treasure Map: A hands-on training designed to uncover and discover enterprising new ways to make money with what you already have

• Sure earned income strategies sound intriguing, but we don’t have anything to sell
• We know nonprofit enterprises can be sustainable funding sources; we’re just too busy getting through the day to think of something new
• We can’t sell things, we’re a nonprofit so it’s not legal
• Our mission is our priority, not making money

Sound familiar? Perhaps one of your staff members, board of directors—or maybe even you—uttered one of these statements, or something close.  We understand that earned income can be confusing for nonprofits, both because it can feel too “business-like” and also because it requires a new way of thinking about what you do, have and can offer.

The Asset Treasure Map is a fun, hands-on training that will lead you though a series of activities. At the end of the session, you’ll have an understanding of why earned income strategies can not only support but enhance your mission, “map” your existing assets and begin the process of deciding which assets could be turned into money-makers.

What’s the bottom line? Chances are you have more ways to make money than you have time to think of. Stop, take a couple hours, change the way you think about earned income and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Donor as Customer: Applying customer acquisition and loyalty strategies to individual donor programs

Do you know how companies like Amazon reach new customers? Any idea why Starbucks customers keep coming back time and time again? Maybe you’ve heard it costs (insert your favorite# here) times more to get a new customer/donor than retain a current customer/donor?

Years of research and funding have gone toward researching and understanding corporate customer development and loyalty programs. You’ve probably also noticed that in today’s hyper-connected world, the balance of power has shifted and consumers/donors are in control.

At Donor as Customer, you’ll learn about similarities between your donors and these business customers that cannot be ignored and gain valuable insight into how you can apply these traditional for-profit customer acquisition and loyalty strategies to a successful individual donor program.

Intended audience: Nonprofit executive and development staff, board members, community trainings

What’s the bottom line? Your donors are your customers. This training will help you start thinking more strategically about how to find them, engage them, keep them and then give them tools they need and power to tell everyone they know all about you!

Tweet all about it! Share your story and expand your networks with Twitter.

Wondering what all the hype is about? What’s a tweet, who are tweeple, what the heck are tweetups? Join interSector Partners, L3C for this engaging, educational session that will give you everything you need to get started and/or turbo boost the power of Twitter for your nonprofit. This is not the usual overzealous enthusiasm about how Twitter will change your life. We'll discuss how Twitter can make your life easier in some ways and complicate it in others.

You’ll learn:

• What Twitter is…and what it isn’t!
• The basics—how it works, what it’s good for…what it’s not so good for
• How many Twitter accounts do you need? The answer may surprise you
• How nonprofits are using Twitter
• What your nonprofit should think through before diving in
• How to decide who to follow, who should follow you and what that means
  
• 5 things to think about before sending your first/next tweet
• Twitter can be addictive…do you have enough time?

Come for the overview and stay for the hands-on application. The first 90 minutes will cover the basics and during the last hour, we invite you to bring your laptop to set up a Twitter account (it’s free!). Once everyone in our group gets set up, we’ll follow, be followed and post our first tweets!

What’s the bottom line? Has anyone asked you yet why you're NOT on Twitter? If they haven't yet...they will soon and there's a really good chance that Twitter can play an important and valuable role in your organization's overall communication strategy. Twitter can also be overwhelming and a potential drain of resources. This training will help you understand how to get the most out of Twitter...quickly and efficiently!

Training costs depend on a number of factors including length of the training, number of attendees and location. Fees include customization for your organization or community, materials, handouts and take-home resources, training follow-up and engaging, interactive facilitation of your preferred topic. Yes, you'll be in this to learn but we'll all have FUN doing it!

Let us know more about your organization or community group and the specific needs and desired outcomes for your training. We’ll get right back to you with a quote and more information about what we’ll need to customize your session.

Please contact Caryn Capriccioso at caryn at interSectorL3C dot com or 303.774.9746 to learn more about how interSector Partner, L3C trainings can help enhance your bottom line.