Raising community awareness, providing important resources: Madison Nonprofit Day hosts third annual event

Throughout the day, participants filled tables and chairs at the Goodman Community Center and Sector67 for workshops covering a range of topics, from management to social media to finances and fundraising.

The professionally-led workshops intended to help nonprofits operate more efficiently while networking with one another and connecting with their community, lead organizer of Madison Nonprofit Day Alnisa Allgood said.

“Our goal is to find consultants and people who can help the nonprofits deal with [administrative and technological] issues better so [nonprofits] can… just focus in on providing really great services,” she said.

This year, about 350 people registered in advance to attend Madison Nonprofit Day, up from about 250 last year, Allgood said. Many others joined workshops throughout the day.

The event first began in 2009 as a project sponsored by Nonprofit Tech, a nonprofit organization with projects and services across the country.

Since then, the project has gained increasing support, with many nonprofit members encouraging Madison Nonprofit Day to hold more workshops, Allgood said. The project now sponsors quarterly workshops throughout the year.

One attendee, Kermit Hovey, who also participated in last year’s Madison Nonprofit Day, said the event helps him learn about new technology, techniques and approaches for nonprofits to use when communicating with the community.

Hovey has worked with multiple nonprofits, including Middleton Outreach Ministry.

When asked his favorite part of Madison Nonprofit Day, he said, “Seeing people and hearing their stories. It’s the stories that give you the ‘aha’ moment: OK, that’s something I should do.”

To find these new ideas, Hovey attended multiple workshops on different topics, one being an early morning 

social media workshop emphasizing the importance of nonprofit’s online presence.

The workshop told the story of Project Girl, an Madison nonprofit organization which used social media to boost their community awareness and success.

“I was very resistive to social media,” said Kelly Parks Snider, co-founder of Project Girl. “But you have to be where the kids are, where the people are.”

To find these people, Project Girl had to go online.

Over 228 million Americans use social media, about 74 percent of the population, according to Wendy Soucie, co-presenter and social media consultant from Lodi.

For the most effective use of online communities, the speakers prioritized an organization’s website over free social media sites, and stressed the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

“The home page of a website is no longer the home page,” Soucie said. The former engineer said people increasingly rely on Google and subsequent online results about an organization, including images and videos.

From blogs to Xeeme, nonprofits have a diversity of free social media options to create a more positive search result. The key is to know the audience and leave useful, searchable online “breadcrumbs,” Soucie said.

But Soucie also warned social media is far from the only tool an organization should use to grow.

“It does not supersede the face-to-face; it’s one of the legs of a stool,” she said. “Make sure it aligns with your business goals. Will social media help me advance my goal? If ‘no,’ don’t waste your time.”

Parks Snider offered Project Girl as a testament to social media success.

The artist from Oregon co-founded Project Girl in 2001 to empower young females in the midst of what she deemed constantly negative media messages.

With a staff of two, Project Girl entered an online vote competition for a grant from @15 and Best Buy. To win the grant, Soucie helped improve Project Girl’s online presence, using Facebook, video, a website overhaul, and more personalized content.

Combined with more traditional campaigning, like emails and phone calls, the nonprofit won the most votes in their group, earning $100,000.

“Just tweeting back and forth isn’t going to make the difference,” Soucie said. “But it is a starting point.”

Alnisa Allgood

Presentations like Soucie and Parks Snider’s social media workshop help attendees and nonprofits learn how to effectively use resources and networks to share important information about their services in the community, a common difficulty among nonprofits and an important goal of Madison Nonprofit Day, Allgood said.

Addressing issues like these at the event was not only useful to nonprofits but also provided insight for local residents and organizations who work with Madison’s many nonprofits.

Such was the case for Nikki Busch, event attendee and librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Library Grants Information Collection, a resource for the nonprofit community to use when writing and applying for grants.

The Collection provides access to books and databases providing information about available grants and offers workshops on how to use those resources and effectively apply for grants, Busch said.

Having to work with nonprofits daily, Busch said she attended Madison Nonprofit Day to network and meet new people involved with nonprofits.

“[The] schedule for the day is in direct response to what local nonprofits are saying what they want to know about,” she said. “So the more I can understand what their concerns are, the more I can develop the collection so they have books that answer some of these questions.”

To find more information about Madison Nonprofit Day or the Grants Information Center, visit their websites at http://www.nonprofit-day.org/ or http://grants.library.wisc.edu