Welcome to Nonprofit Local
I never know exactly where my work will lead me, but somehow I’m always called to help local nonprofit organizations build capacity and thrive. Perhaps it’s because I started my nonprofit career in a small, local organization in Brown Deer, Wisconsin where I advocated for and alongside children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families. New to the nonprofit world and just out of graduate school, I learned more from the families I served than they learned from me, not the least of which was that each of us has amazing potential to create value in this world if we’re given the tools we need to succeed. Since that time, I’ve spent most of my career serving mission-focused organizations (more here). Whether as a paid staff person, a consultant, or a board member, I’ve witnessed firsthand the lack of capacity-building resources in most local nonprofit organizations. Generally, every last dollar is put directly into programs, leaving very few resources for training, networking, learning about effective strategies that other nonprofits are using, or even catching up on the latest trends.
In May of 2009, we launched Pluff Mud Connect in coastal South Carolina (read more about it here) as our first web-based service designed to create a new tool to build capacity for local nonprofit organizations. Not only does it efficiently connect local nonprofits with local consultants and service providers, it also allows us to fund small capacity-building projects and creates a true WIN/WIN/WIN for nonprofits, local businesses, and the community as a whole. During our early due diligence and research for Pluff Mud Connect, and as we started to explore our next location for a local connection site, we began to realize that not only do most nonprofits struggle with finding local resources, but there also isn’t a free and centralized service that connects them on an ongoing basis with leadership tips, nonprofit sector news, and a way to share “best practices” with other organizations outside their communities.
Being the capacity-builder that I am, I began to ask myself, “What if every staff person at every nonprofit had access to good advice and a place to come together to share good ideas? What if nonprofits could connect locally through our connection sites, and then also connect with other organizations across the United States, and perhaps even across the globe?” I began to ask others the same question, including friends, family, and colleagues in the sector. The answer was a resounding, “That would be fundamentally awesome.” I recruited my husband Mark Deaton to join the team as our technology guru, and bada-bing, Nonprofit Local was born!
We’re launching today as a beta site, with daily tips, aggregated news, and discussion boards on a wide variety of nonprofit sector topics. Won’t you join us? Post in our discussion boards and give us feedback about the site. Email us with your questions, ideas or suggestions. If you’re a nonprofit board member, staff person, or a program volunteer, we’ve built this site for you.
Welcome to Nonprofit Local.
–LD