YNPNSD and IdeaEncore: Working Together

Lately you might have noticed that our blog is featuring a new guest contributor representing the IdeaEncore Network.  We have been partnering with the San Diego-based IdeaEncore Network for a while now (you might remember their contributions featured in our now-quarterly newsletter), and as they have grown, we've welcomed the opportunity to share educational resources with this community stakeholder.

Establishing a connection with IdeaEncore is important to us not only because they have a collection of great resources to share, but also because their vested interest in both growing and grooming the next generation of nonprofit leaders means that their mission aligns with our own.

IdeaEncoreNetwork is an online learning marketplace for nonprofits to share, buy, and sell information resources such as policies, presentations, plans, and templates that improve their effectiveness and efficiency. It is a community of people like you who have been through situations like yours.  It is a place where nonprofit professionals share, buy, and sell tools and resources that improve effectiveness and efficiency.  By aligning individual and organizational incentives, including earned income, we reduce “reinvention of the wheel” and increase both the social and financial return on philanthropic investment.

Sharing your experience and documents helps emerging and experienced nonprofit professionals the world over by saving them and their organizations time and money.  When you share with IdeaEncore, you have the opportunity to generate earned income for your organization by selling resources that you’ve created.   

Scott Bechtler-Levin, President of IdeaEncore, stated “All of us can benefit from sharing what we have learned with each other.  And the credibility and recognition can really help emerging nonprofit leaders establish themselves.”

It’s free to create an account, and 90% of resources are free to download.  Unlike Idealware, another resource-driven site, IdeaEncore is a crowdsourced platform that facilitates its users own personal and professional growth in the resource-sharing process.  Learn more here, and let us know what other resources you use for knowledge management.  

Follow us on Twitter or Facebook, where we share information about local San Diego nonprofit events, job announcements, and share resources.  Thanks to Jamie and Scott for their amazing contributions!

IdeaEncore Resources of the Month

Looking to find and share resources with colleagues?

IdeaEncore provides an easy way for you to share what it know, learn from others in the nonprofit sector and earn unrestricted income for your organization. Check out these resources to help you network and build important nonprofit skills. And don't forget to select Young Nonprofit Professionals-San Diego (YNPN-SD) as your Primary Professional Association when you sign up for a free IdeaEncore account.

On-the-Job Development Opportunitiesfor Nonprofit Staff

Shared by The Bridgespan Group (Free)

Are You Chairing a Board by the Seat of Your Pants?

Shared by Scribner & Associates ($7.50)

Who Generates More Traffic to Your Website – Twitter or Facebook?

Shared by Idealware (Free)

Hiring Your First Employee – A Step-by-StepGuide

Published by Nolo Press ($14.99)

The Intergenerational Center

Created by Templeton University (Free)

Highlight: Classy Awards Nominee for Young Nonprofit Leader of the Year, Meg Storer

Meg Storer has been a part of 2-1-1 San Diego for 8 years, helping to brand it and support its growth from a 1.5  million dollar budget to its current 4.5 million dollar budget. Meg started with completing the CPUC application, organizing events, outreach, press releases and building relationships in the community from Qualcomm to city managers. Those relationships have since flourished, with giving from some of San Diego’s top foundations, individuals and corporations. While Meg has built 2-1-1′s annual event from having 300 to more than 650 attendees, she has also worked to bring awareness of the 2-1-1 service to the thousands of nonprofits that need to be connected to better serve our community.

Meg Storer first came to 2-1-1 when it was located in a small shop with a few folks on the phones, taking calls from hard-pressed individuals needing help and not knowing where to turn. Meg played a major role with the launch of 2-1-1 in 2005, writing and sending press releases to convey the message of what 2-1-1 is, responding to media inquiries about this new organization, and conducting outreach at events. Meg then moved into the role of ensuring that 2-1-1 staff gave accurate referrals via her position as Quality Assurance Manager. CEO John Ohanian recognized Meg’s tremendous efforts to spread the word and promoted Meg to Communications and Development Manager. 

In this position, Meg helped to re-brand the organization, building out an entirely new website, managing the development of 2-1-1 social media, managing the needs of the Board of Directors, being the “handler” for the 2-1-1 CEO, and writing grants to support the organizations operations and new special programs, which she simultaneously assisted in building out. Meg is known for “getting it done” no matter what the effort. Her current passion lies with helping 2-1-1 develop its current partnership with other organizations to grow its military and veterans program, a program Meg finds very dear to her heart because of her own experience as a military wife. She knows the isolation one can feel when you don’t know where to turn when your loved one is abroad, and she uses those emotions as fuel to help 2-1-1 and its special programs thrive more than ever.

Thanks to our partner, StayClassy, and best of luck to Meg.  Visit the Stay Classy site to get tickets for the September 17 awards ceremony.

Highlight: Classy Awards Nominee for Young Nonprofit Leader of the Year, Amy Harmon

Raised in a struggling low-income family, Amy blossomed as a woman sweetly fierce about her calling to make higher education accessible to all. Amy has over 11 years of service and commitment in nonprofit management and fundraising, from Executive Director of an organization empowering young woman (which she appeared on Oprah for) to recently becoming the San Diego State University College of Education’s Director of Development.

Where does vision and commitment to a cause come from? Amy’s story is rare and one of transcendence and persistence. In modern society it is one thing to grow up urban poor and it is another to grow up rural poor, with very litle access to resources/services, dilapidated and unfunded schools, and no community supports for miles. Amy grew up in rural Kentucky, with her three older brothers and parents, in a place where school success could have easily taken a back seat to the growl of a hungry stomach and the struggles of home life. Not to mention, without the simple luxury of indoor plumbing, mid-night treks to the outhouse do not lend to a good nights sleep, particularly in the winter. Many times it is through difficulty and trial the most beautiful things form. Amy’s spirit and humble altruism is a testament to that proverb. Thanks to the help of a high school guidance counselor, Amy discovered Berea College; a small private liberal arts college where bright low-income students attend tuition-free. It was there that she discovered her passion for the power of education to change lives.

Only in her early 30s, Amy has raised millions of dollars for numerous worthy causes, none dearer to her heart than giving those less privileged a shot at higher education. For Amy, these stories are personal and will tell you of the impact a college education had on her life. To her and those she fundraises to support, college is more than classes that lead to a job, but a saving grace, a pathway out of poverty and a shot at destiny. Amy is a living testimony of her work, work that is breaking generational cycles of poverty and bringing hope to society’s forgotten youth.