Marketing, The Networked Nonprofit, Online Training – Kivi LeRoux Miller, Beth Kanter, Allison Fine and Nancy Schwartz – All in This NTC Post!

This is my second article about 10 NTC – the 10th Annual Nonprofit Technology Conference held in Atlanta earlier this month.

On the first day I attended a Marketing Meet and Greet hosted by Nancy Schwartz and Kivi LeRoux Miller. They are two of the top nonprofit marketing gurus around and they make it all seem so simple and so much fun. Even as they smoothly facilitated over 100 people in discussion, I learned about email list segmentation, using humor, and the value of using case studies to inform boards.

That evening I saw Kivi LeRoux Miller give one of the best presentations I have ever seen. And she did it at the Ignite series where each speaker has only 5 minutes and 20 slides. Kivi’s topic sounded serious “A Content Creation Strategy for a Busy Nonprofit”, but she got her message across with a hilarious and playful set of slides. The simple message was create something really good, share it in lots of pieces and remix it into something new. As you are doing this - Be Genuine, Be Generous and Be Grateful. She got all of that in – and very effectively in 5 minutes. You can see Kivi’s slides at:

http://tinyurl.com/y8ea6vh

Kivi’s book, “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause” is due out soon and you can link to it on Amazon at the link below.

I attended two sessions with Beth Kanter and in one she was paired with Allison Fine and the other with Kivi. Allison and Kivi are both relaxed and chatty and Beth seems like you can see her brain going a 100 miles a minute while she is talking. She is engaging and engaged at the same time. Actually, Allison and Beth opened the session – The Networked Nonprofit by discussing their different styles and how they collaborated on their new book. It was fun to watch them work together and see how well it all came together from two different angles. They both have strong collaborative skills and it showed in how this session flowed so well.

This session had three themes: Social culture, transparency and simplicity. They defined having a social culture as: Using social media to engage people inside/outside to improve programs, services or reach communication goals. They used the Red Cross as the example and their journey with engaging social media on many levels. For transparency they used the Indianapolis Museum of Art and its presentation of statistical data in an excellent visual slide. There were several examples under simplicity where Beth implored us to do what we are good at and use the network for the rest. What I especially like about this book is that it addresses how nonprofits can use social media on many levels and not just for fundraising. That is such an important point for nonprofits to get. You can also pre-order this book. See the link below. Beth participated in three sessions and you can see her slides at her blog and at Slideshare.net/Kanter. As usual they are rich in content.

I also attended “How to Design and Present Online Training People Will Love” by Kivi and Beth. Laura Quinn of Idealware also joined in. Amongst the three of them they have a lot of experience with online training including using different systems. I learned a lot about what to consider and plan for and since I have been thinking about offering webinars I found this session to be very useful. But I think I will postpone webinar planning for now. Maybe – next year.

Kivi brought wine to this session which was from 3:30 – 5 PM on Saturday afternoon. The room was overflowing because it was Kivi and Beth – not because of the wine. The very last thing I did at NTC10 was win a Nonprofit Marketing Guide t-shirt that Kivi gave away at the end of the session. Thank you, Kivi – I’ll wear it proudly.

What a way to top off the conference! It was the best conference I’ve ever been to and all of the sessions were outstanding. I’m already planning to attend in 2011 in Washington, DC.