Almost 1800 people from not-for-profit organisations around the world gathered in San Francisco for NTEN's annual Nonprofit Technology Conference. Joining them was a small team of Australians.
In a joint effort with NTEN, we sent two full scholarship winners and two part scholarship winners to 12NTC from Australia. Shai and I also had the chance to tag along to meet and learn from what's happening in the USA when it comes to using technology better in the not-for-profit sector. We also bumped in to Jo Fulton from Philanthropy Australia which was a nice unexpected Aussie connection in San Francisco!
Shai gathered people together who work across the world, whether they had come overseas to 12NTC or had different offices in different countries. The session was part of the 'Connect' track, meaning it was all about group discussion and learning from each other.
Four key topics were picked by the group to discuss:
Each group was encouraged to add their notes to a shared Google Doc. You see the outcomes from the discussions on the shared document.
I spent most of my time hanging out with local community organisers from around the world to hear how they manage and communicate better with their communities.
There were organisers from Manchester, Istanbul, Warsaw, Toronto, Baltimore and more. It was great to see that many of the challenges we faced were the same and also how people are using different tools to address similar issues.
The key takeaways were the need to organise ourselves better using online tools, and also the need to find ways to engage other volunteers in taking ownership and leadership of the community.
The hunt for that elusive cheap (ideally free) all-in-one solution for volunteer organisers continues!
Trying to spend time with four people in a crowd of over 1700 is tricky, especially when there were such a variety of sessions to get to.
Thankfully, we had time on the last night to share a meal together and hear what they enjoyed the most about the conference. I also took the opportunity to grab a short interview with them on the go. Each of them took away something different from the conference and was excited about what they would take back to their organisations.
See their videos in the playlist below:
Hujjat Nadarajah | Lorraine Pacey | Chris Ward | Lyndal Cairns
There are already some great round-ups, blogs and commentaries from various sessions at 12NTC, here are just a few:
There are still plenty of other articles being published. Follow #12NTC on Twitter to stay up with the latest.
Were you at 12NTC? We'd love to hear what you thought. Please leave a comment below!
We loved it! Such a great conference, I just wish I had a bit more time to explore San Francisco though. Such an interesting city.
Thanks, Kim! It's always wonderful to attend NTC. Long trip, but worth it. Hope to find my way back again one day. :)
Thanks so much for traveling