Dispatches from Pennsylvania

I, like Elizabeth, got the chance to travel to a meeting hosted by one of NCNA’s members, the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations (PANO). I was also very excited to get the chance to actually see a Town Hall meeting up close and in person (though it did involve getting on a train at 5:02am—that’s right, before the actual crack of dawn). Being an ambitious and dedicated bunch, the PANO staff decided to kick the Town Hall model up a notch by hosting an entire Pennsylvania Nonprofit Congress Meeting. What’s more, they got the state senate to declare April 17, 2008 “Pennsylvania Nonprofit Day” across the Commonwealth! Wow!

The event was great. We started and ended on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is a beautiful space (check out pictures of the event, including a couple of yours truly, on PANO’s Flikr page). The morning consisted of speakers discussing the priorities of the nonprofit sector and the work they have been doing toward those priorities. The group then broke down into four breakout sessions: one each for Leadership, Advocacy, Capacity Building, and Public Awareness. Within these breakouts, the groups discussed collaboration, barriers, and solutions to advance the sector. The day was broken up by a press conference with some fantastic photo ops of the PA Nonprofit Congress delegates. Finally, the entire session wrapped up with everyone coming back to the floor and reporting out on the best of the solutions proposed by each breakout group. 

The entire event was exciting, grassroots-driven, discussion-based, and solution-oriented; in short, very Nonprofit Congress-like. And the best part? PANO will gather all the feedback from the meeting, compile it, and let their members vote on the best of the best solutions. That’s what I like to see: nonprofits coming together around common priorities, focusing on making progress, and keeping the momentum going. Plus, I brought back some of the feedback on the collaboration portion and we will add it to our growing information pool from Town Halls around the country. This work will help inform the national meeting and our work in the year to come.

Thanks go out to PANO for inviting me and for hosting a fabulous event. I also want to send a shout-out to the dedicated delegates from the great state of PA who are helping to advance the nonprofit sector in their communities and across the country.

PS: The Speaker’s Chair has officially been renamed the “Queen’s Chair” in honor of the women that took the seat at the closing session. I got to be one of them and it was definitely a highlight of the day.