Twenty-two years after establishing the state’s first nonprofit academic center, the Helen Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is about to bring nonprofit leaders from across Wisconsin together for a two-day conference.
Dubbed the Wisconsin Nonprofit Summit: Together, the inaugural event will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on July 27 and 28 at the Brookfield Conference Center.
The event would be one of the first and largest nonprofit events to be held in the state in many years, said Bryce Lord, associate director of the Helen Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management.
With a mission focused on improving the leadership and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations through education, research, and service, HBI is hoping the event will eventually become an annual resource for nonprofit leaders, especially those located outside areas with robust nonprofit networks.
In addition to featuring speakers from all over the country, including former NFL athlete-turned entrepreneur, Jacob Brown and celebrated volunteer engagement expert Tobi Johnson, the event will offer a number of ways to attend. Attendees can attend in-person, virtually or both, so it is truly a “hybrid” conference, Lord explained.
“At HBI we are always trying to find the best way to provide some services, and professional development to nonprofits and so we thought why not give it a whirl,” Lord said. “We wanted to figure out the best way to reach the state-wide nonprofit community, not just southeastern Wisconsin. We find that many organizations outside of Madison or north of the Fox Valley, don’t really get any sort of support. We are trying to figure out the best way to manage that, and this was one way we thought we might help … We have hosted speakers and workshops, but this is the first time we are doing a big, statewide conference.”
The summit’s in-person capacity is 300 people, and as of Thursday afternoon, July 13, there were 20-25 in-person tickets available for purchase. There are an unlimited number of virtual tickets available. HBI is also still looking for a few volunteers for the conference, who can attend for free if their application is accepted.
Filling a void
While HBI’s resources have always been available to nonprofits able to access them, Lord said nonprofits from outside the region are increasingly reaching out to HBI for guidance as other resources and professional associations have disappeared.
“There are nonprofits all over the state – something like 36,000. In the past five or six years we have been getting connected with organizations outside of our traditional service area,” Lord said. “The last state nonprofit association – (the Wisconsin Nonprofit Association) – folded about eight years ago, so there isn’t any all-encompassing organization to support nonprofits across the state.”
The closure of the Nonprofit Center for Milwaukee, which occurred around the same time, Lord said, has also resulted in more nonprofits looking to HBI for assistance.
“When (the WNA folded), we started looking beyond southeastern Wisconsin to see what we could do to provide services to the rest of the state. We have done some travelling. We’ve been to La Crosse. We’ve up to the Fox Valley, offering presentations and development opportunities,” he said. “But when we started to think a little more broadly, holding a statewide summit like this seemed like a really good solution.”
Lord noted that many states have associations that provide education, professional development, and advocacy for the nonprofit sector not just at the state level but connecting to the National Council for Nonprofits in D.C., but for some reason efforts to form such associations in Wisconsin haven’t lasted very long.
UWM used to host a conference every couple of years that focused on urban-facing entities, but the university stopped holding the event about 10 years ago as a result of budget cuts, he said.
“We were part of trying to get (the Wisconsin Nonprofit Association) off the ground, so we’ve always had that umbrella in mind. But, obviously, being part of UWM, we can’t take on the advocacy piece – there’s a conflict of interest there,” Lord said. “But we asked ourselves, what else does a state association do that we might be able to take on, and a lot of that has turned out to be education and professional development.”
Goals
With education and professional development in mind, this month’s summit is likely to have something for everyone, especially those folks looking to improve their volunteer engagement and retention efforts.
“Tobi Johnson is considered to be guru in the world of volunteer management,” Lord said. “When I mention her name to volunteer managers that I meet, their eyes light up.”
Other speakers will focus on financial stability, management, leadership, marketing, and communications, but a lot of what HBI hopes to achieve with the summit is providing networking opportunities, especially for nonprofits that may be working on the same mission but in different areas of the state.
The goal is for the summit to become an annual event, Lord said, one that will eventually travel to other places in the state.
