The Mid-South Nonprofit Conference + Catalyst Awards will offer a keynote address + 12 breakout sessions
The Mid-South Nonprofit Conference returns for its 5th year and aims to address barriers, solutions, and best practices within the nonprofit sector. We are excited to announce that the conference will return to in-person attendance at the University of Memphis, Thursday, April 20th. We are also happy to announce that the Nonprofit Catalyst Awards returns and will be held in-person for the first time! The Conference + Catalyst are presented by Momentum Nonprofit Partners in partnership with the Institute for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration.
This year’s theme, “All In”, will examine how the recovery and success of the nonprofit sector is driven by the collective and effective work of the staff, board, stakeholders, clients, community, government, and corporate sector. Whether it is fundraising, board development, public policy or leadership development, it is critical that all roles within the sector take an “all-in” approach to building the capacity of the nonprofit sector towards real change and success.
Our speakers
Xavier Ramey is the CEO of Justice Informed, a social impact consulting firm based in Chicago, IL. He is an award-winning social strategist, noted public speaker, & conflict mediator. Combining his background in economics and extensive management & social impact experience, Xavier leads a company that brings a wealth of experience & network to clients seeking catalyzed strategies for inclusion, philanthropy, CSR, & community engagement.
Why Core Values Matter to Your Organization’s Success
This workshop will discuss the importance of workplace culture and how critical it is to set the right tone with your team! Maintaining a focus on the core values of an organization can help to strengthen teams, empower leaders, and carry a nonprofit forward for future years. Nonprofit staff and volunteer teams can often face burnout due to “wearing many hats”. Creating a collaborative and uplifting workplace culture can help employees feel heard, acknowledged, and understood. These small changes build upon each other and can lead to increased productivity and employee engagement. Real-life examples from companies (both nonprofit and for profit alike) will be given. The audience will leave with immediate action items that can be implemented right away for positive organizational change.
Keep them Coming Back: How to Use Stories to Drive Donor Retention and Authentic Relationships
Stories can have a unique way of engaging an audience and inspiring them to give. But the best stories and storytelling techniques can help your nonprofit keep your donors involved in your mission and even help you get that second gift. In this session, we’ll dig into what nonprofits with the best first-time donor retention rates do to communicate with donors in order to double down on donor cultivation and retention.
How to Build Trust through Brand Storytelling
Trust is one of the most important elements of customer-donor-brand relationships and without it, your brand might not gain the recognition it deserves. Storytelling is an integral part of our lives and establishing relationships with others. A good brand story has the ability to create long lasting emotional connections with customers which promote customer trust, loyalty and improves the longevity of your brand. Storytelling also plays a key role in making your brand widely known and memorable.
Why Core Values Matter to Your Organization’s Success
This workshop will discuss the importance of workplace culture and how critical it is to set the right tone with your team! Maintaining a focus on the core values of an organization can help to strengthen teams, empower leaders, and carry a nonprofit forward for future years. Nonprofit staff and volunteer teams can often face burnout due to “wearing many hats”. Creating a collaborative and uplifting workplace culture can help employees feel heard, acknowledged, and understood. These small changes build upon each other and can lead to increased productivity and employee engagement. Real-life examples from companies (both nonprofit and for profit alike) will be given. The audience will leave with immediate action items that can be implemented right away for positive organizational change.
Maximum Impact: Why Public Policy Matters
An engaging presentation with dynamic visualizations that explains how public policy matters for your mission, why going upstream drives long-term outcomes, ways to productively engage in the policy process, and how data-driven research and analysis can better equip your organization, community, and elected officials to identify, understand, and solve big challenges.
Trust Your Intuition: Building a Board Isn't Rocket Science
We often over-think and under-prioritize strategic planning and board development. In doing so, we treat this duo like flying a spaceship–achievable only by geniuses with substantial financial resources. What if we began to trust our instincts and our passion to accomplish the tasks of strategically developing our organizations with the support of a strategically aligned board? Attendees will learn to identify community assets and bolster intergenerational leadership as key agents of change.
Cultural Equity 101: 7 Ways to Build an Equity-Centered Organizational Culture
Establishing an equity-centered organizational culture requires uncovering potential barriers, assessing opportunities gaps, identifying disparities, and taking responsibility for reducing inequities. In this interactive session, participants will learn how to establish inclusive and equity-centered practices, policies, protocols, and programs that align with the needs of our society's diverse workforce.
The Mission-Driven Special Event
A nonprofit special event reflects your organization’s image—from the initial invitation to onsite operations. The way your event flows can define how an audience sees your agency and understands your mission. Whether you’re planning a small bake sale or a large gala, a special event serves not only as a source of revenue, but a point of entry for new donors and volunteers. In this training, we will explore various elements of special event planning to ensure that you maximize both your fundraising and your “friend-raising” at the events.
What’s Your Untold Story? Inspiring Impact Through a New Lens
If there’s anything we’ve learned from the last three years, it’s that we can’t do things the way we’ve always done them. This applies to video storytelling, fundraising and messaging across all mediums. In this session we’ll dive into stories; specifically video stories. Using case studies of four different nonprofit organizations, we’ll learn how and why certain people, topics and methods are used to take people to a place they haven’t been. We’ll dive into methods behind selecting a story, interviewing a subject (for video, social media or print), creating an environment that makes everyone comfortable and keeps the story authentic, real and unscripted. All while maintaining dignity and integrity at the forefront.
Telling Your Financial Story: Developing Compelling Messages to Activate Your Board, Stakeholders, and Community
Join us to learn about key components of effective financial storytelling to equip your stakeholders to champion your organization. We'll review tools and strategies for data-informed communication, along with examples of nonprofits that have changed their financial storytelling approach. Following this session, you'll be able to articulate the main components of your financial story, identify the data you'll need to gather to tell your financial story, and design a financial storytelling action plan.
Re-Engage Your Donors with a Social Engagement Strategy
With the ever-changing world of digital-marketing, it can feel frustrating to keep up with how traditional methods of nonprofit donor engagement can translate to new platforms. A proper social media engagement strategy can help raise money, increase your donor database, and ultimately scale your organization. In this presentation, you’ll learn:
Why social media is an effective tool for donor engagement
How to engage with your donors on social media
Where to find potential new donors
Threats to Nonprofit Sustainability and How to Safeguard Your Organization
Fundraising is tough but it doesn’t break nonprofits. In this session, you will learn about the 5 common pitfalls to sustainability, how to avoid them, and how to monitor the health and impact of the organization without quitting your day job. You will leave this interactive session with tools your board can deploy immediately to help energize and empower your nonprofit team.
Designing for Social Impact: How adopting an innovation mindset and human-centered design practices can help scale your organization's impact
The term "innovation" in the social sector is nebulous and often misunderstood. With the strong focus on detailed program models and metrics, it can be seen as a risky endeavor to innovate. However, human-centered design—the basis of innovation—provides a structured, repeatable process for problem solving that can help you better engage your clients and donors, build more effective programming, and even provide new ways to measure, evaluate, and communicate your organization's impact.
Our closing speaker will be Vicki Clark! Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Vicki has devoted the past 30 years of her career to building capacity of organizations and individuals; inspiring community and business leaders to take action. She is known for her work in Servant Leadership, Leadership development, diversity, equity, inclusion and access, antiracism assessment/training and facilitation, board development, strategic planning, volunteer resource development and effective communication.
Her work spans dozens of corporate clients, nonprofits and government organizations. She sits on numerous boards, including the National Diaper Bank, and is a regular trainer at community and
leadership organizations such as United Way and the Association of Junior Leagues International.