Donors, Debates and Board Members

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Have you ever wished you could get inside the heads of your board members to see what turns them on and fires them up enough about your mission to get them to actually want to be involved in fundraising? How about the next generation of donors? Wouldn't you just love to know what makes them tick and how to best engage them? And charity watchdog groups — what's up with them and their ratings?

These are just a few of the issues you need to explore as a fundraiser and also just a few of the opportunities you'll have to do just that when you attend next week's FundRaising Success Virtual Conference & Expo 2013, happening from 10:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12.

I'll get to the agenda in a second, but I first want to mention two of the best things about the conference:

It's FREE!
It's entirely online, so you can attend from the comfort of your desk or home office or even that little place in Maine where you'll be bed-and-breakfasting. (It's OK, your traveling companion won't mind. Really.)

But let's look at the agenda:

The day kicks off at 10:15 a.m. with a lively debate around charity watchdog groups and how they are helping and even sometimes hurting the fundraising sector. During "The Great Ratings Debate — Exploring the True Measure of Nonprofit Success" session, Angie Moore will lead a discussion between Food for the Poor's Angel Aloma and H. Art Taylor from the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. And you even have the chance to submit your questions to Angie in advance. Read about that here.

The rest of the schedule is below. Check back here every day for a more detailed description of the various sessions.

The rest of the day looks like this: