Helping Community Service Organizations Make Connections

I had the pleasure today of leading a training workshop for a wonderful group of non-profit executives. This was a great group of community service leaders from West Virginia. The participants came from a diverse range of organizations, including:

Vista volunteers
Family resource networks
Homeless shelters
Mental health support groups
Community development organizations
Welfare-to-Work groups
Main Street organizations
Women's support & advocacy groups
Career training organizations

I have tremendous respect for the tireless, resourceful, passionate and effective leaders who are inspired to get the word out about their programs. They face many challenges, such as lack of funding, staff shortages and breadth of territory--not to mention complexity of message and audience.

Together, we worked to polish networking skills, audience mapping, message development and message delivery. The coup de grace was, undoubtedly, the videotaped elevator pitch session! (Again, great job everyone!)

This was all part of the annual Conference on National and Community Service, also known as the Faces of Leadership Conference. It is presented each year by the Volunteer WV organization. Everyone was eager to learn and share their insights, questions and experiences. It was made so much better by the presence, talent and energy of my talented co-instructor, Jennifer Wood!

Conference participants--a big welcome! Please leave a comment and say "hi."

Kudos to marketing geniuses everywhere who take the time to sharpen their skills and build new ones!