I’m pleased to be part of a team that plans educational events for nonprofit leaders. Our work includes listening to nonprofit staff and board members and providing sessions relevant to the topics they want to learn about.

Christal Cherry

On May 2, we delivered!

Our session on Board Engagement & Fundraising Through a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) Access, and Belonging Lens hit on the two topics nonprofits have been telling us they want to increase their knowledge in – DEI and fundraising.

Christal and Kala Lones, Terraluna Collaborative

More than 100 nonprofit leaders from Northeast Wisconsin learned from Christal Cherry, The Board Pro, a national speaker with over 23 years of fundraising experience and a contributing author to “Collecting Courage,” which documents Black fundraisers’ experiences with racism in the nonprofit sector.

Christal’s warm, dynamic presentation style created a safe and supportive space that encouraged us to ask questions and share experiences.

Christal challenged my assumptions about donors’ ability to give and made me reflect on how I’ve been perpetuating inequities in what I’ve valued in donor relationships.

I’m not the only one who benefitted from Christal disrupting my current view of fundraising.

Workshop attendees find new ways to look at their fundraising efforts

Comments from post-event surveys include:

“The material challenged me in ways I did not expect. I will be asking tough questions of my Boards about diversity and inclusion and teach my boards to be more active in fundraising efforts.”

Christal with Peter Gianopoulos from United Way Fox Cities and Community Foundation’s Tammy Geenen

“The workshop that Christal put together was one I think the Fox Valley area desperately needs. It forced us all to take a step back and look at the way we’re approaching funders of color, or if we’re even approaching them at all. I think the nonprofit sector still has a lot of work to do in dismantling those implicit biases, but I left feeling like I had a toolbox full of action items to use if I ever needed them.”

“I was really impressed with the depth of the DEIAB Lens – hadn’t thought about fundraising in that way before, but I will now.”

Thank you to the planning team sponsors Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, United Way Fox Cities, Nonprofit Leadership Initiative, Association of Fundraising Professionals and CLA for supporting nonprofit professional development.

Annette Look, NPLI Program and Communications Manager

The Nonprofit Leadership Initiative within the Community Foundation is a partnership of Fox Valley-area nonprofits, funders, educational institutions and businesses dedicated to providing resources needed by effective nonprofit boards and executive leaders. NPLI offers a wide range of leadership, management and technical skill-building programs, as well as peer learning circles, to the entire nonprofit sector in the Fox Valley.

We support NPLI with a grant from the Community Vision Fund within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, one among many community partners supporting NPLI. Click here to learn more.