Keweenaw Report Your Source for Local News and Sports
Copper Country nonprofits have many supporters. But sometimes, it is difficult for philanthropies to communicate what they need effectively with potential donors. Tomorrow and Saturday, Lisa Dietlin, President and CEO of Transformational Philanthropy, will lead two presentations in Houghton.
Tomorrow the Keweenaw Community Forum will host Dietlin at the Lakeshore Center, inviting nonprofit leaders to learn about Transfomational Philanthropy. She says that the biggest reason she hears potential donors haven’t given to a mission is because they weren’t asked.
Or buy a ticket to attend an event, be it a gala, a golf outing, participating in a walk, to sharing your mission and having folks engage and transform. You know, all the people that I speak with, across the world, all of them say the same thing. They want to know they’re making a difference. – Lisa Dietlin, President & CEO, Transformational Philanthropy
Many residents in the region want to engage with groups and organizations. But sometimes it can be difficult to locate all of the different ways to engage with the community. Dietlin adds that nonprofits need to meet people where they are at.
So we move from an hour at a time as our tagline to a project at a time, by engaging and meeting people where they’re at. And I think that’s one of the missteps that we make in nonprofit organization leadership. We think, we do what’s easy for us. We say, if everybody shows up from four to eight on Tuesday, we can knock this out of the ballpark. Well, maybe your kids have soccer. Maybe that’s when you go visit your mom or your grandmother. – Lisa Dietlin, President & CEO, Transformational Philanthropy
Dietlin has also been invited as a keynote speaker for the 2024 Global Community Engagement Conference at Michigan Technological University. There she plans to share how collaborative efforts to create or partner programs may have a larger impact than starting a new organization.
You know, before COVID, the IRS was getting 100 applications a day for new nonprofits. Today, they get 260, two and a half times more. 260 well-meaning people and boards saying, I want to be a nonprofit organization. So like a tip I’m going to share is don’t start a new organization. Become a program of an existing organization. Go to the Keweenaw Community Foundation, go to Michigan Tech, go to Little Brother Friends of the Elderly, and talk to them about the program you want to run and see if they’ll be your fiscal agent, your fiscal sponsor, to see if it’s going to take off. – Lisa Dietlin, President & CEO, Transformational Philanthropy.
There is no registration for Dietlin’s transformational philanthropy presentation with the Keweenaw Community Foundation. Friday’s event will start at 3 pm inside the Lakeshore Center room 123. Registration for Saturday’s global community engagement conference will begin at 8:30 am. Dietlin will start her keynote address at 9:15 am in ballroom A2. Those interested in learning more about Lisa Dietlin, or either presentation about philanthropic action in the Copper Country can find more information below.
Transformational Philanthropy presentation with the Keweenaw Community Foundation
