Time:  9:00-11:00am, 8:30am registration and networking
Location:  Boston Private Bank & Trust Company (10 Post Office Square, Boston, MA)

A Training Series for CDC Boards

Dates/Times:
Session I: November 5, 2011
Session II: January 28, 2012

An exciting and unique opportunity to help strengthen your Board of Directors.  This “state of the art” governance training provides your Board members with innovative best practices; concrete strategies; and tools to help strengthen your Board’s effectiveness and ability to impact your community.  It is specifically designed for CDC boards; helping them engage more directly and become more accountable to the diverse communities they serve.  The sessions are highly interactive, “hands‐on”, and action‐oriented; board teams with their Executive Directors will learn together and apply the learnings to their own boards and organizations.

The training was offered to 3‐5 CDC’s who will work together as board teams, along their Executive Directors.   There were two sessions for the training, one held on an evening and one on a Saturday to accommodate Board members’ schedules.

Training Participants will learn about:

• Nonprofit board and individual board member responsibilities, including its role in communitybuilding and engagement, tailored to CDC governance
• “State of the Art”, best practices in developing more effective governance structures, such as board meetings and committees
• How to develop successful and culturally‐competent ways to recruit and retain valuable board members
• A new approach to governance which includes community residents, in partnership with the board, in governance decision‐making
• Strategies for building superb ED‐Board partnerships
• Action strategies for bringing this learning back to their organizations

The series will be facilitated by Judy Freiwirth, Psy.D. Principal, Nonprofit Solutions Associates.

Participating Organizations:

• Codman Square NDC
• Field’s Corner CDC
• Dorchester Bay EDC
• Fenway CDC

Participant Quotes:

• “Thank you. This has been very exciting and helpful!”
• “Very well prepared. Interesting materials and handouts. Good exercises and ‘engagement’ techniques.”
• “Good job – useful learnings, great to have board and ED together.

• Governance and Planning
• Human Resources
• Resource Development
• Financial Management
• Marketing & Communications

February 2012

• Feb. 1 – Fundraising Events that Raise Funds: What you need to do to structure a successful event
• Feb. 2 – Supervision Basics for Everyone
• Feb. 29 – Making Sense of Financial Statements: What non-accountants need to know

March 2012

• Mar. 22 – Major Gifts Fundraising: Focus your board
• Mar. 29 – Nonprofit Leadership: Increase your effectiveness

April 2012

• Apr. 4 – Raising Funds in New Terrain
• Apr. 4 – The Chair-CEO Relationship: Setting Expectations, Getting Results (Worcester)
• Apr. 12 – Facilitation Skills for Every Situation
• Apr. 26 – Supervision Basics for Everyone

May 2012

• May 2 - Budgeting for Nonprofits

Please visit our website to see the latest offerings, to learn about special 20% discounts on workshops for members of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, and other special discounts.”

The purpose of this seminar is to provide CDC project managers with an opportunity to develop their knowledge of real estate development and their project planning and problem-solving skills in a manner that draws on the knowledge and experience of their peers, as well as the seminar leader.

The seminar will meet once a month, for about four hours.  If possible, the location will rotate each month among the CDCs whose project managers are participating in the seminar.

Before the seminar starts, each participant will be required to identify a development project that he or she is working on and provide some basic information about this project.  These projects will then serve as the “case studies” for the seminar.

In the first part of each meeting of the seminar, three of these projects will be reviewed and discussed, for about half an hour each.  The project manager will briefly present his or her project, describing the basic goals for the project and its current status and then focusing on questions that have arisen, problems or obstacles that have been encountered, and actions that are planned for the near future.  The group will then discuss the project, with the other partici­pants and the seminar leader drawing on their own experiences to provide information and ideas to the project manager.

Each project manager will present his or her project in this way every other month, so each project will be discussed three times over the course of the seminar.  We will also have brief updates each month on the three projects that are not being reviewed that month.

In the second part of each meeting, the seminar leader will make a presentation on a specific real estate development topic and then open the topic up for questions and discussion.  The focus of this segment will be on project managers gaining a better understanding of relevant topics than is usually possible in the daily rush of managing projects.  The topics can be drawn from any aspect of real estate development.  The actual topic(s) for each meeting will be selected by the group itself at the previous meeting.  Examples of topics that might be selected are the process of getting a zoning variance, different approaches to selecting and contracting with a builder, and the various types of project financing.

Time permitting, each session will also include a brief discussion of a policy issue related to affordable housing.  The seminar leader will select an issue for each month and send out relevant materials in advance of the meeting.

The seminar also includes “office hours” – two two-hour periods each month when the seminar leader is available to individual participants, by telephone, to discuss any development-related topics, including questions about specific programs or projects.

The seminar will run for six months, beginning in October.  All participants will be asked to make a commitment to attend all six meetings, as well as a pre-meeting to be held at the end of September or early in October.

All information provided by participants about the projects on which they are working on will be kept strictly confidential.

LISC Project Manager Seminar Application 2011

Application Deadline: September 20, 2011

Presented by the Interaction Institute for Social Change
Date:  September 20-22
Location: Boston, MA

Nonprofit Organizations are confronting issues today that are so complex that the problems are not well defined and the solutions are not the least bit clear. Collaboration is no longer optional; it is an imperative. We must find new and creative ways to come together to build relationships, think strategically, and chart our way forward to a better future. To do this well requires a new mindset, heartset, and skill set, which is what IISC offers in their Pathway to Change™ workshop.

Pathway to Change™ is deeply rooted in IISC’s experience and practice in the social sector and will provide you with the methods and tools needed to artfully design and skillfully facilitate collaborative change.

If you are engaged in a network – whether it be a coalition, task force, working group or multi-stakeholder collaboration – Pathway to Change™ will lift up the essential skills you need …from facilitating productive and meaningful conversations to designing a roadmap that will take your change efforts successfully forward to far greater impact.

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Present a clear rationale to a group of stakeholders about why a particular change is necessary.
• Convene and facilitate a diverse group or team to agree on the key elements of a collaborative change process.
• Complete a stakeholder analysis that identifies key stakeholders and describes how and when they will be engaged.
• Work with others to map out a proposal for a pathway to change.
• Apply facilitation techniques to guide the group’s work throughout the different phases of the change process.
• Guide groups to balance success across three dimensions: results, process, and relationship.

Date:  October 26, 2011
Time:   9:00-11:00am, Breakfast and Networking 8:30am
Location:  Boston Private Bank & Trust Company (10 Post Office Square, Boston, MA 02109)

Registration Deadline: October 22, 2011

This 2-hour, interactive seminar was led by a tax-exempt organization specialist. The agenda included the role of your board, director duties, board composition, board procedures, policies, as well as other compliance issues and director liabilities.

Co-sponsored by Boston Private Bank and Trust Company, The Lawyers Clearinghouse, and Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster.

Date: September 22-23, 2011
Location: Massport Fire-Rescue Headquarters (162 Harborside Drive, East Boston, MA 02128)

Date:  September 27, 2011
Time:  9:00am-4:30pm
Location:  The Nonprofit Center (89 South Street, Boston, MA 02111)

ESC of New England, Third Sector New England, and Citi partnered with the Mel King Institute for Community Building to host a Nonprofit Professional Development Conference designed and conducted by volunteer consultants.  Workshops were interactive, full of user friendly information, tools, templates, and great opportunities for participants to network and initiate collaborative relationships.

Available 2-hour session topics include:

Action Plans: Turning Vision Into Reality for Nonprofits
9:00am—11:00am

This workshop addressed the idea that translating strategy into action to achieve the goals for your nonprofit
organization can be overwhelming. Through the presentation nonprofit leaders answered and addressed the questions: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How do we close the gap? And what do we need to do next?  With useful handouts and an interactive presentation, this workshop covered steps needed to create a successful action plan.

Lunch: 11:30am—12:30pm

What Difference Are You Making?: Developing and Measuring Outcomes
12:30pm—2:30pm

This workshop was designed to help organizations develop and implement measurements of program outcomes – the expected results or impacts of program activities and services. The session addressed how to identify and measure outcomes, and how to analyze and report on them. The interactive nature of the session allowed participants to apply the concepts to their own organizational outcomes, and several handout tools are provided to help their staff in future discussions.

Program Prioritization
2:30pm—4:30pm

This workshop focused on aligning an organization’s programs with its mission, identifying the financial impacts of each program, and ensuring that each program has measurable outcomes.  In addition, this workshop reviewed the way in which management and the board of directors should be using this information to make strategic, long term decisions to build a high impact, sustainable organization.

Instructor Information:

Mike Stauff—An ESC volunteer consultant for 10 years, Mike Stauff has been involved with numerous non-profit organizations in community development, education, health care, and other services, specifically in strategic management and board development efforts.

Barry Seltser—Dr. Seltser is a researcher, consultant and manager with twenty five years of experience in government and nonprofit organizations. He has extensive expertise in the assessment and development of performance measures as well as project management and evaluation.

Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Time: 8:00am – 10:00am
Location: Essex County Community Foundation, 175 Andover Street, Suite 101, Danvers, MA

Housing and community development organizations, like many other non-profit organizations, are experiencing increased pressure due to limited development opportunities, more stringent financing standards and greater fundraising challenges.  On April 13, 2011, the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) and Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC) will co-host a roundtable discussion on “Increasing Capacity and Achieving Economies of Scale in the Non-profit Sector” providing developers of affordable housing and community development projects with an opportunity to share their views on possible models for increasing capacity, cutting costs, achieving economies of scale and leveraging their ability to raise debt and equity through:

• development joint ventures

• corporate restructuring, charter amendments and mergers

• tax exempt bond pools

• outsourcing property management

• fundraising partnerships

Panelists will be:

• Shirronda Almeida, Director of The Mel King Institute for Community Building
• Mickey Northcutt, Executive Director of North Shore Community Development Coalition
• Chrystal Kornegay, President and CEO of Urban Edge Housing Corporation
• Emily Rosenbaum, Executive Director of Coalition for a Better Acre
• David Welbourn, President and CEO of ECCF

Moderator:  Kurt James, Director at Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster, P.C.

To allow for full discussion, attendance at the roundtable discussion will be limited.  If you would like to attend, please RSVP to Patricia Michaud by telephone at 1-978-777-8876 or by email at p.michaud@eccf.org no later than Friday, April 8, 2011.