Here we are at the end of the first day ... pre-conference "sponsorship" day ... at the NAMP Conference. It was a decidedly mixed bag.
The case studies, while interesting, would have been tremendously more helpful had they actually covered how the organizations actually went about making their sponsorship contacts and the process they went through in obtaining those sponsorships, whether cash or in-kind.
The "sponsorship boot camp" was good information, but could have been more effective had the presenter been more able to stay on topic and on time.
However, the key note speaker at lunch was fantastic! Brenda Andonlina, Director of Public Relations and Brand Markeitng at
Fisher-Price, was informative, engaging, and inspiring. Her short presentation packed more useful tips about what corporations are looking for and how they want to be approached than most of the rest of the day put together. She was the perfect choice for today's lunch.
I have to say, though, that tonight's dinner made the whole weekend worthwhile. Americans for the Arts arranged "dine-arounds" for tonight & Sunday. A number of presenters held informal dinners at area restaurants. I went to the one on using social networking websites, lead by Chad Bauman from
Arena Stage in Washington, DC. There were ten of us in all at a really fabulous restaurant called
Grass (truly amazing mahi-mahi). We had a very relaxed, nuts-and-bolts conversation about what is going on in the Web 2.0 world and what each of our orgs are doing about it. I went as an admitted novice to the whole online phenomenon beyond websites and HTML emails. I was excited about the opportunities out there, I just didn't know how to use them or which ones to pay attention to. We talked about everything from MySpace and Facebook to YouTube to Yelp.com. fascinating, fascinating stuff! Of course, I want to dive straight in tonight and explore all the possibilities, but I have to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. After tonight though I am exponentially more excited about the fact that Synchro got its own YouTube Non-Profit Channel ... oh, the things we will do! :-) If ya'll have experiences on any of these sites, please share them ... and watch for our new PSA, to be premiering on YouTube in the near future!
'night, 'night.