How to Make Every Day a Congress Day
Ann Rosenfield, CFRE
Executive Director, The WoodGreen Foundation
I am not actually an expert in everything. Even in the things where I am an expert, sometimes I need a second opinion or a different perspective. That’s why Congress is great – it is a wonderful chance to meet other fundraising and trade ideas.
My friend Mary McPherson and I have come up with a great way to make every day a Congress Day – we call it Knowledge Exchange.
The idea behind Knowledge Exchange is simple – I come to your charity and give you training on a topic of my expertise that you want to learn. Then you return the favour by coming to my charity and doing the same. The host charity buys the speaker lunch and pays for parking. It is cheap as dirt, dead simple, and really works.
We did a Knowledge Exchange over the summer – not only did we learn more, one of the unanticipated benefits was that we ended up doing some joint problem solving. We found we had some common questions and a quick conversation led to a solution for both of us.
And the best way to get started on your own Knowledge Exchange is to come to Congress and find a Knowledge Exchange buddy help you over the next year.
Knowledge Exchange is one way – How do you make Congress learning last all year long?
Ann is the Executive Director of the WoodGreen Foundation. She will be speaking at Congress 2011 on “Small Shop, Big Success.”
Another great way to do knowledge exchange is through Twitter. Lots of fundraising conversations happening all the time. I’m sure some of the Congress speakers can be found tweeting away…
I love the idea of Knwoledge Exchange, I will recommend it to other charities! I usually get together with old and new friends and exchange on what we learned in our respective sessions over cocktails or dinner. Now that handouts are electronic, it’s nice to downlooad the ones from the other sessions.
To Trevor, I will be tweeting throughout the conference that’s for sure, @lpdiversa