RDO Infocentre
New this week: March 24th, 2008
2008 Inventory of Philanthropy, Fund Development and Fundraising Resources for Rural Nova Scotia Nonprofits and Voluntary Organizations
FRL's Program Manager, Wendy Johnston has put together a great inventory of learning resources for Nova Scotia rural nonprofit and voluntary organizations. Highlighting philanthropy, fund development and fundraising resources it also includescommunity development, leadership and youth learning opportunities. You can download the pdf file at this link. It will also be included in our library database. This inventory was supported by funding received through the Rural Philanthropy Resource Network.
Rural Roundtable Dialogues - Nova Scotia talks philanthropy!
Between January and March 2008 three rural roundtable dialogues were held in Nova Scotia. Tatamagouche, the Forties and Cape North were the locations and more then 65 people gathered to talk about what philanthropy means to them.
"When I leave here today, I want to find a way to be more philanthropic and set a stronger, more visible example for others."
The dialogues served as a catayst to bring people together and engage in meaningful, action oriented discussion of ideas around philanthropy. The Rural Philanthropy Round Tables celebrated the many ways in which Nova Scotia encourages philanthropy. Read the full report
It's been a wonderful journey!
This week we celebrate the end of the RDO training, coaching and mentoring program but only the beginning of a network to support your financial sustainability journey.
Over the last 6 months you have actively participated in FRL’s Rural Development Officer Program: A fund development capacity building program for rural nonprofit and voluntary organizations. A long name to say you were part of a network dedicated to supporting you in moving your organization toward financial sustainability.
The team at FRL has been honoured to have shared this journey with you. I would like to take a moment and recognize the contribution each of our staf team members has made to the sucess of the Rural Philanthropy Resource Network Project in both Ontario and Nova Scotia.
Karen Moore, Manager of Training and Development
Wendy Johnston, Program Manager - Nova Scotia
Mary Lou Kominek, Program Coordinator - Ontario
Alina Florescu, Research Coordinator
Each have done a great job of supporting and assisting our Rural Development Officers and their organizations throughout the learning, coaching and mentoring program.
Next Steps
The RDO training, coaching and mentoring program concludes on March 31, 2008 but your network of support will continue through our Learning & Resource Centre at www.ruralphilanthropy.ca (that's this website). While we no longer have our training, coaching and mentoring team (Karen, Mary Lou and Wendy) available for ongoing one to one coaching the Learning & Resources centre continues to remain active for your ongoing use. We encourage you to continue to use this website. Here are some of the resoures you will continue to have access to:
- The FRL Bulletin will continue to be delivered to your mailbox every two weeks. Remember if you have a new email address to sign up for a copy of the e-newsletter at this link.
- Guest speaker series will be hosted and you can find out and register for the sessions through the Bulletin, at our homepage or this RDO Infocentre page.
- Our first guest speaker series will start in April/May with a series of four sessions on Individual Donors and your annual giving plan.
- Use our “Ask the Librarian” live chat feature for research requests and for prospect research and foundation searches.
- Check out the Coffee Shop in the members section. While the RDO Coffee Shop will be discontinued you will be able to participate in our members Coffee Shop area. Here’s the quick link to the members area.
- And when you want to talk to a real person you can continue to contact Marjory. Here’s her contact information:
Marjory Gaouette
Director of Programs, Foundation for Rural Living
Email: directorofprograms@frl.onca
Telephone: 519-86-4126 ext 228
Cell Phone: 519-831-0783
Where has our journey taken us?
For those of you who attended the in-person meeting and focus groups earlier this month you may have participated in an exercise to 'map your journey'. One thing maps and our group have in common is the diversity of roads, places and points of interest that make up our paths. Every map is an invitation to explore. For every destination there are a number of choices to be made in how to get there - will this trip be the non-stop drive until your arrive trip or will it be one where we stop to visit a museum and see friends along the way. Every route has its challenges and who knows what road is under contruction (or snowed in!). With our map as our guide, our car (airplane, bus or bike) as our tool and ourselves as the driver we know we can reach our destinations.
A review of "What we've been talking about ..."
Karen lead us through a series of learning sessions including:
- Reflecting on our values about money.
- Philanthropy, Fund Development and Fund Raising.
- Developing our fund development portfolio and taking care of ourselves in this sometimes stressful field.
- Strategic & operational planning and aligning our mission, vision and values with our program and services.
- Planning: strategic, operational, fund development and communications.
- Identifying our stakeholders and the value they receive from and bring to our organizations.
- Developing our Case for Support.
- Developing our Fund Development Plan and
- Pulling it all together for our future action plans.
Guest speakers each of whom volunteered there time to be with us shared their experiences and knowledge in these areas:
George Stanois provided us with a great introduction to developing our fund development plan. The 12 Step Fund Development Plan can be found at this link www.12stepfundraising.com.
Pat Kipping; Major Gifts and Planned Giving Officer, Atlantic and Quebec, Oxfam Canada shared her experience and learnings as a fundraiser at her session 0 - 100 kmp: Fast Track to Learning Fund Development on the Job.
Shelley Williiams the Executive Director of the Bissell Centre in Edmonton, hosted a session on Social enterprise; The 3 P's: Philosophy, Process and Practicalities. Shelley's e-book on social enterprise can be found in our library.
Cindy Lindsay, Community Foundations of Canada and Executive Director of Guelph Community Foundation lead a discussion on the Role of Community Foundations and discussed opportunities for building organizational funds in your local foundation.
Resources, forums, handouts and other downloads
During the course of the program we have sent you handouts, resources, forms and other interesting attachments that from time to time you will probably forget where you filed. (It happens to us too). To help you out, everything you need to find again will be listed in our members area in the 'Download Forms' page. Here's a quick link for you. RDO Downloads (you need to log in first).
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