Our experience so far...

Hello OCB friends! Rebecca here from the Preservation Trust! Are we the first organization to spend our grant money? :) We applied for funds to bring back a consultant (Bruce Lyon with Swan Development) that we used in the past to formulate our Carlisle Street Initiative. This time around, we asked him to facilitate a strategic planning meeting with staff and board to help us determine what the next five years will hold for our organization (and what kind of staff or board help we will need to get us there!).
Bruce has incredible vision and spent the last two days helping the Trust figure out what we should and should not be focusing on. I realized that it truly helps to have a third party come in...he introduced ideas about our growth we would have never thought about! Although he is working on big picture ideas and deliverables, my immediate takeaways were regarding our board members, board structure, and their time committment. He stressed that the Trust really needs an proactive board to push us to the next level. Don't get me wrong--we have some fabulous board members, but they tend to "think" more than they "do." I am sure other bloggers can understand this position!
I also wanted to share that we held our planning meeting at The Showroom (Hub-Bub's building) and it was an amazing, creative location. The Showroom is available for private event and they have a non-profit rate.
I'll write again soon!
Rebecca

Finally ON

Hello Everyone
Angela here - from Upstate Forever. I am so glad to finally be on the blog. My email spam blocker evidently works too well but Curt was able to get through on my home email account today. Yeah.

First of all I want to apologize to other members of OCB Cluster #2 for my absence at the first meeting. It seems that the date finally selected worked for everyone but me. HOwever, I have June 1 and all other first Fridays now marked on my calendar so plan to be with all of you then.

The SCANPO conference was most appreciated and as usual, I came away with lots of good information, which I have yet had the time to revisit. Hope to get to that very soon so that I can share the info with others in our organization.
Dinner at Tronco's was wonderful - as I knew it would be. Since I lived in the Columbia area for the past 20 years, it had become a favorite of mine early on. Thanks to MBF for getting us all together that evening - and for dinner.

For those of you that are not aware, our OCB grant was written to assist Upstate Forever in Spartanburg to recruit new members. We have only been operating in Spartanburg for about three years and although we have a mailing list of nearly 2,400, only about 10% of those folks are contributing members/donors. We are working to change that and also to look outside that list for other interested Spartanburg County residents.

Have a great week.
Angela

The Charles Lea Center

Hello all!

I just wanted to take a moment to let everyone know that Charles Lea Center is now officially registered and blogging! The Center is very grateful to work with such a wonderful group of non profits and the Mary Black Foundation to complete our organizational capacity building grant. I am looking forward to hearing more about each agency and their grants as well as troubleshooting via this blog. Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy Spring Fling!!

Katie Brannan

SCANPO Member Benefits

I hope everyone enjoyed the SCANPO conference. I enjoyed having dinner with you! Did you know about these cost savings programs that SCANPO offers its members?

• Directors and Liability Insurance: discounted rates through Lighthouse Underwriters
• Telephone and Web Conferencing: great prices through ReadyTalk
• Nonprofit Unemployment Insurance Program: unemployment tax savings products for every size nonprofit
• Telecommunication Services: Exclusive rates on local, long-distance, and toll-free services, Internet access, conferencing, and other communication products through Spirit Telecom
• Office Supplies: discounted rates on supplies, furniture, technology, and printing through Staples Business Advantage

For more information, visit the Members only section at www.scanpo.org.

Molly

great blog

Ok - it looks like folks are getting the hang of it. Thanks for all of the posts. Now let's see if we can get some comments. The following link is an article about scale in the non profit sector and the role of philanthropy. Click here for the blog.


So let's see who is reading... Can't wait to read you comments.

SAM

Hello from SAM (Spartanburg Art Museum),
It was great to see everyone at the SCANPO conference. Thanks so much to Molly and Mary Black Foundation for dinner on Thursday...although my waist doesn't thank you very much right now!
SAM plans to use our grant to hire Alexander, Haas, Martin (a nonprofit/museum consulting firm in Atlanta) to help us develop a Strategic Plan. They have sent me a list of all of the "stuff" I have to get to them first, then the games...I mean planning, will start!
Looking foward to our first small group meeting on May 7th.