Better Together: May 2024 Supporters & Partners Briefing
It was such an exciting moment to reveal my vision for the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida to a special convening of supporters and partners in the Upper West Club at EverBank Field. With support from the Jaguars Foundation, my team and I shared key results, current trends and future projects while also engaging in conversation with attendees around their interest areas and opportunities for partnership.
The following topics were featured:
Looking Back:
Year-to-date, the NPC has hosted 74 events with nearly 2000 participants. A few program highlights include Managing Successful Teams Series, Organizational Leadership Series, Grants and Evaluation Series, 2023 LGBTQIA+ and 2024 Beaches Emerging Leaders, Capacity Building for Clay County Nonprofits Series & Clay Board Member Development and our annual Nonprofit Works Conference.
In addition to these regular programs, the NPC member survey respondents reported the following as critical services: NPC staff as a resource via phone, email, or one-on-one meetings, staff development workshops, trainings, and seminars, advocacy on behalf of nonprofits (e.g., trainings and communications around policy issues), the Nuggets e-newsletter and the custom member portal for resources and information. Members also reported their top challenges including increased demand for services, the recruitment and retention of professional staff, an uncertain financial forecast and the regulatory/political environment.
Moving Forward:
Based on our member survey responses, we will be increasing our focus on revenue and fund development, staff development and organizational capacity building. Additionally, the Nonprofit Center will soon release our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Member Toolkit to include our own internal journey along with the tools, resources, training and polices we have created to help our members develop and integrate best practices into their own organizations.
The Rena Coughlin Research Fund five-year research agenda was released and features a diverse field of research and policy activities to advance the social sector, advocacy opportunities on key issues and new initiatives to support partnerships, mergers and acquisitions to increase impact.
Connect, Strengthen, Lead & Impact:
Knowing that the urgency and complexity of challenges that nonprofits, partners and supporters must address continues to grow requires that we come together in new ways to share knowledge, build trust and lay the groundwork for collective action. To catalyze this journey, the Nonprofit Center is building a framework of services to accelerate this journey.
Launched in 2023, the Northeast Florida Community Indicators Project provides the community with an easy-to-use dashboard that is regularly updated with real-time local data. The data is both broad and targeted as users can find region-wide and zip code-level data on commonly used indicators of community driven progress. Through custom, organizational dashboards, the Nonprofit Center will be providing training, coaching and consulting to help members measure their outcomes, define their impact and develop their investment case making.
To accelerate strategic partnerships, we are launching two new initiatives to advance collaborations. Catalyst will launch in September and will convene members and community participants around six key issue areas to learn and share best practices, encourage relationship building and create opportunities for increased collaboration. By catalyzing these networks for collective action, we hope to better serve our members by removing barriers to partnerships and to build consensus around key indicators.
Additionally, the Nonprofit Center is conducting a feasibility study on shared services models. By reducing the administrative burden of back-office systems such as technology, accounting, human resources, grant writing, marketing, research, etc., we hope to develop a scale of economy for our members so they can better focus on their mission.
It is an exciting time for the Nonprofit Center as we fully integrate the vision that we are Better Together into all our of our programs and services. I am so grateful for all the support and encouragement we have received as we embark on this important journey. The Nonprofit Center has a wonderful legacy of building the capacity of the sector to increase impact and these new initiatives build on our strength while preparing for the future.
We Believe in the Good.