December 5, 2018 at 4:06 p.m.
Nonprofit leaders put their heads together at summit
Nonprofit leaders put their heads together at summit
By Kayla Thomason-
The attendees divided themselves into small discussions groups each with its own scribe. After several minutes of discussion the scribe would stay put while the rest of the group moved to another table with a different scribe. This process continued for a few rounds.
The first question the attendees were to answer was "In 10 years picture yourself opening up the newspaper. What headlines of a vibrant community do you see?"
The responses ranged from a nonprofit shutting down because there was no longer a need for it to evidence of a booming community.
The second question was "What major community needs are affecting our friends and neighbors?"
Among the answers were the lack of a living wage, retention of youth and college graduates, affordable health care for all, infrastructure improvements and more.
The third question was "What are the current strengths of our community?
In response, the participants cited natural resources, outdoor recreation, low crime, health care offerings, a growing arts community, diverse manufacturing and many more good qualities.
In discussing challenges and barriers, the attendees cited a lack of grants, limited budgets, a lack of connection to alumni, volunteer recruitment and retention issues and more.
Potential support mechanisms and resources mentioned included the Orton Family Foundation, professional assistance, training on grant writing, and a combined media listing so members know where to send information, advocation at the state level, and a way to share volunteers for events.
Melinda Childs, development director for ArtStart and one of the event organizers, was pleased with the conversations that took place.
"I was happy with it," she said. "I was very happy with the turnout and our goal was really that there would be a lot of conversation and I think that was successful, a lot of people contributed ideas and thoughts and challenges and I felt like it was pretty open and honest and it created a space for people to share and that was our goal."
Childs said she hopes those in attendance took away information that will help them reach their goals.
"I think the awareness that we are all working together and we can all be resources for each other (is important)," Childs said. "I think sometimes there tends to be some competitiveness where people are in their silos and they are just thinking about their organization, but I think the first step is to understand that none of us have enough resources so if we pull together our strengths and the resources we do have we can do more together."
Myles Alexander of Oneida County UW-Extension agreed that the event was good way to bring those who are facing with similar challenges together.
"This is great, this is just the ideal of getting people together and learning from each other, the visioning piece is a real important begin(ing) to figure out how we can work together better and what we share in common," he said.
"I see this as just the first in a series," he continued. "It won't be just like this because it will evolve and develop."
"There's a lot of good people doing good work that have good ideas, they know what they need, they know what they want to do so we just figure out how to do it together," he added. "The Northwoods, Oneida County have a lot of fantastic natural resources, human resources, businesses, institutions - this is just one example of the strengths that we have to build on. We have some really profound challenges to work on but I think we have the capacity to do it."
Kelly Seeliger of Girls on the Run North Central Wisconsin found the summit very worthwhile.
"I thought it was very beneficial, very promising to see all the nonprofits that we have in our area," she said. "I was surprised even to see how many that we have, how many showed up and wanted to have that collaborative discussion to see how we can not only continue benefiting our communities through our organizations but also benefiting and supporting each other as organizations. I wanted to thank Ryan (Zietlow, CEO of the YMCA of the Northwoods) and all the other individuals and the organizations, Nicolet for supporting this. It was a free event so a lot of times too when you are talking about nonprofits having training and education that is affordable or free for us is obviously really beneficial, so that was really great. Thanks to everyone who put this on and thought of bringing this activity and event to our organizations."
Host organizations for the Northwoods Impact Summit were the YMCA of the Northwoods, ArtStart, the Rhinelander Area Chamber of Commerce and United Way. Nicolet College offered the space at no cost.
Kayla Thomason may be reached at [email protected].
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