Want to win $2,000 for your nonprofit?

Have you heard about the opportunity for your nonprofit to win one of several awards given by Council Services Plus (CCSNYS' for-profit subsidiary insurance company) and the Nonprofit Risk Management Center...read more

Did you miss Web 2.0 training a couple of weeks ago?

If you missed the Web 2.0 training that Val did a couple of weeks ago, you missed a lot!



The major headline coming out of research conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research late last year was that charities in the US are outpacing the business world in their use of social media/web 2.0.



The study of the Forbes Magazine list of the 200 largest US charities, called Blogging for the Hearts of Donors found that more than a third of the organisations are blogging, forty-six percent report social media is very important to their fundraising strategy and the majority monitor their online reputation.


Indeed, something like three quarters of those nonprofits studied were using some form of social media – including, podcasts, social networking, video blogging and wikis.


Whilst the authors of the study expected to find that charities were adopting social media, they didn't expect to find that the technology adoption levels were considerably stronger than corporate America. To read more

Change of Plans!

There has been a slight change of plans for the June and September meetings...due to scheduling conflicts we haven't been able to get the Policy and Local Government speakers in June, so that topic will be September 3rd. The meetings in September and December will be at the American Red Cross at 786 Delaware Avenue.
June 4th we will be discussing Fund Development, but we're still looking for a meeting site...does anyone know of any place we may not have tried?

Steering Committee minutes

The Steering Committee met today to review the follow-up survey that resulted from the first meeting of the ED group held February 21st. You can see the entire survey results in pdf format, (questions 4 and 7 answers were open-ended, so click here to see those) but the summary is as follows:

· Wednesdays 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. in the City of Buffalo worked best for the majority of people, so this year’s calendar was established, with the meeting site and specific speakers to be announced. Presentation topics were discussed, and it was decided to go with the top three setting this year’s agenda as noted here. If you have any suggestions for speakers that you know of for these topics, please let me know.

Wednesday, June 4th (Policy and Local Government Issues)
Wednesday, September 3rd (Fund Development and Grant Seeking Issues)

Wednesday, December 3rd (Skill Development for Executive Leadership)

· Several good names were submitted; and the Steering Committee chose the WNY Executive Director’s Network since that name most closely reflected the geographical area represented as well as denoting that it is an Executive Director’s group.

I hope that you are all able to attend on June 4th...watch this site for the meeting site and speakers!