In this episode, Michael shares insights from the Florida Philanthropic Network Annual Summit, highlighting five reasons why nonprofit professionals should attend conferences. He emphasizes networking, learning, idea generation, growth through association, and team building as essential benefits. Michael urges nonprofit leaders and board members to prioritize conference participation for personal and organizational development. Join us for a practical discussion on leveraging conferences to drive nonprofit success.

Timestamps:

00:00 The importance of attending conferences for personal development

01:10 Meet new people

01:30 Learning about topics of interest for your industry

02:00 Get new ideas

02:20 Growth through association

02:42 Teambuilding

03:10 Board members, encourage the CEO to pursue personal development opportunities

Transcript:

On this week’s episode of the i501cYou the podcast for nonprofit board members, I want to talk a little bit about personal development. You see, I’m fresh off of coming from the Florida Philanthropic Network Annual Summit, and it was just a tremendous experience and it reminded me how important it is for CEOs, executive directors, board members, even staff to get out of the office and interact with the people, attend, attend sessions and just learn, have an opportunity for learn learning away from the office.

So five reasons You should attend some type of conference in your industry.

#1: Obviously, is to meet new people. You can expand your peer network and there’s nothing better than that in terms of we can never have too many peers, never have too many relationships. In the beautiful state of Florida. Attending that FPN conference, I met people from across this great state and now I have people I can reach out to.

#2: Learning specific topics. You know, every conference has session breakouts, topics of interest to your industry, to you, something applicable. And clearly that ongoing learning is incredibly valuable, especially away from the office. In fact I attended a session on artificial intelligence in the nonprofit sector. Absolutely fascinating. I don’t know if I could do anything with it yet, but I’m going to I’m bound and determined to learn a little bit more about that.

#3: A great place to get new ideas just in those breakout sessions, in those breaks, over coffee, over cocktails, speaking with people, sharing what you do, learning what they do, you will get new ideas that you can bring back home and ultimately implement in your own communities.

#4: I’m a big believer there’s growth through association, just being among your peers, being among people that are in different walks of life. You just grow as a person and it’s just a wonderful experience and it’s something that will just make you a better leader. The more interactions you have with different types of people In

#5: Is the team building aspect. Well, I saw some folks there that had their full boards. There are many board members, a lot of staff there, and arguably this is the best team building exercise available. Bring you your staff, your team to a conference where people have an opportunity, attend different sessions, come back and have those conversations, see each other in a setting outside of the office and a little more casual setting and some points a little more professional setting.

It’s really, really invaluable and I strongly encourage that. And let me reach out to you board members that may be listening, encourage your CEO, your executive director, to pursue personal development opportunities, ones like I just suggested attending a conference and bring in some of the staff. It will likely be one of the best investments the board can make in an organization that’s helping their leaders and their staff grow. This is Michael Corley, fresh off the Florida Philanthropic Network Summit where I had an opportunity to interact with colleagues from across this great state of ours, and it reaffirmed my belief on the need for us to connect as human beings and do so at some type of annual conference. That all said, I will. i501 See you next week.

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