Bao Vang

It’s that time of year again where the MN State Fair is here, the early morning are very cool, and school busses are picking up the kids to go back to school.  This year, I’ll also be going back to school.  I’m taking a Business Management degree and I’m going to bring my expertise and knowledge of the nonprofit sector to the classroom. Tonight is my first class so wish me luck.

Today, the Senior Managers and the Strategic Connectors are meeting at the McKnight Foundation to discuss communication in the new information technology age.  We’re currently discussing Web 2.0 and should nonprofits embrace it and use it?  We have Joel Kramer and Holly Ross as guest speakers.  We’re also watching two videos about Web 2.0.  What do you think?  Should nonprofits embrace Web 2.0?  What about intellectual property and ownership?  What about content sharing?  I’d like to hear more from you about how your organization is utilizing Web 2.0 or not using it. 

Joseph Zilber, a 90 year-old real estate magnate, is going to donate 50 million dollars of his money to “fix” some of the entrenched problems in Milwaukee over the next ten years.  You can hear the whole story at NPR, National Public Radio.  What strikes me about this is:  Is 50 million dollars enough to help fix deeply entrenched problems in a community such as poverty, affordable housing, access to education, and affordable healthcare?  I think that it’s great that Joseph Zilber is wanting to give back to the community that he grew up in.  It amazes me that he’s giving away $50 million and he has my utmost respect for making that kind of gift to try to help people who were in the same situation that he was when he was growing up.  Here is a man who wants to try to make a difference and I hope that it succeeds.  He will need the help and the support of the local community partners (philanthropic institutions, local goverment, and the local community members).   I hope that the city, the county, the state of Wisconsin, and other philanthropic donors (either donors or institutions) will also join in this man’s effort to make changes in the neighborhood that he grew up in.   

Hello everyone!! I’m writing you from the opening retreat of the 2008 Strategic Connector Nonprofit Leadership Institute.  The retreat this year is being held at the Gainey Conference Center in Owatonna, MN.  This year we have a great group of 23 participants representing great nonprofits from around the state.  I have two pictures to pique your interest.  Also, don’t forget, this coming Monday and Tuesday is the Nonprofit Leadership Summit at the McNamara Alumni Center on the University of Minnesota.  I hope to see you there.  MCN has a great lineup of speakers and presentations.

This year NP 2020 is going to have a virtual space with some online learning sessions.  Last year’s NP2020 session was held in Grand Rapids at the Johnson Center at Grand Valley State University.  If you are interested in making your voice heard as an emerging nonprofit leader, I would encourage you to go to the NP2020 website and become a host blogger.  You can also read about the 2007 NP2020 and network with other emerging nonprofit leaders. 

There is a facsinating three part series that is being shown on TPT channel 17 at 9:00 p.m. called “Unnatural Causes: Is inequality making us sick?”  This Thursday is the final part of the series.  Last week’s show talked about the high diabetes rate in one of the Native American Indian tribes and the focus of the Lao community who live in Richmond, CA. What is facsinating about these shows is that I never really thought about how stress really affects each of our lives.  Is racism so minute that we don’t see it until it adds up to years of stress on our bodies that then shortens our lifespan?  This series is thought provoking.  Let me know what you think about it.    

Did you know that twitter was mentioned at my training this morning as a way that people can inform other people in the case of an emergency?  If there is no cell phone service, you can use twitter to let staff or clients know to if your organization is open during a disaster or emergency.  If you have used Twitter in that way, I’d like to hear from you.

Here are some other interesting blogs that may pique your interest in issues in the nonprofit sector.

Minnesota Budge Bites by MCN’s Minnesota Budget Project Staff

Perspectives from the Pipeline by Rosetta Thurman

Asian American Giving by Dien Yuan

Hyphen Blog  by Hyphen, a nonprofit magazine

About Micro-philanthropy by Social Actions

By the People by the Center of Democracy and Citizenship, University of Minnesota, Humphrey Institute

I feel bad that I have been neglecting my blog.  It’s that time of year where the whirlwind of everything leadership at MCN will be taking off.  I’m pleased to say that I am 8 days away from the kick off retreat for the 2008 Senior Manager Leadership Institute retreat.  This year we have a full class of 25 participants.  The deadline for the Strategic Connector Leadership Institute is coming up on April 25.  I hope to get a lot of applications and that the selection committee will have a hard time deciding who will get in this year.  On the nonprofit leadership front, there’s been a flurry of research reports that have been released in the past couple of weeks.  I want to point out some of them.

CompassPoint, Meyer Foundation, Idealist.Org, and other national partners, released their follow up report to Daring to Lead, called Ready to Lead.  I’m glad that some of the conclusions that they came to are the same as what I have been writing in my MCN newsletter article. 

Opportunity Knocks, a nonprofit job posting site, also released a report about nonprofit employment retention and turnover.  An interesting report, but MCN has some good numbers and will be releasing those numbers later this year about nonprofit employment retention and turnover so keep an eye out for that.

GEO or Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, also released a report about foundations and funding leadership development of nonprofit organizations.  I still haven’t read that one but I’ll be interested to see if GEO makes any recommendations about funding nonprofit leadership development. 

On another note, MCN is looking for session ideas, exhibitors and sponsors for our upcoming Nonprofit Leadership Summit.  There is more information on MCN’s website, but it will be a great conference to attend.  I hope to see you there.

Finally, as nonprofit leadership is getting more and more airtime, I hope that you think about your own leadership and the leadership of those around you.  Are you thoughtful of how other people around you exert leadership?  Is leadership only contained in the upper management of your organization?  How is the nonprofit sector going to have to change the way we develop future leaders?  And finally, how are you demonstrating your leadership abilities?

I think that there is the question of if social networking does or does not work.  I’m not sure if it works or not, but I do know that I’m glad that there are social networking sites.  Early on Sunday morning, I used Facebook to see if some old high school friends has created a profile.  Lo and behold, I’ve discovered 2 old high school friends and one of them is working out of the house that I used to live in.  She actually works out of my old room.  How crazy is that?  To find out that 16 years after I left the small town of Houghton, NY, that the old house that I grew up in is still standing and it’s being put to good use!! What makes this story even funnier is that I was playing poker on Facebook and chatted with someone who was going to Houghton College and he was able to tell me that my old house was now the beauty salon.  It’s amazing how small the world suddenly became and I truly believe that you can find out anything or get to someone through six degrees of separation.