United Way's Nonprofit Training and Resource Center Presents Summer Seminar

United Way of Blount County's Nonprofit Training and Resource Center is working to help area nonprofits again by presenting a training and enrichment seminar June 4 on the campus of Maryville College.

A collaborative effort between the Blount County Chamber Foundation, the Center for Strong Communities at Maryville College, and United Way of Blount County, the summer seminar is a follow-up to a widely popular session the three organizations presented in the fall.

Online registration began April 3 and can be accessed by clicking here. 

The price for the seminar is $20 per person, and attendance is limited to 90 registrants.

Nationally renowned nonprofit management consultant Peggy Morrison Outon will be the keynote speaker, kicking off the event with an address on strategic planning.

Outon, Executive Director of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management of Robert Morris University, has served as a management consultant to more than 450 nonprofit organizations, and she authored the workbook for nonprofit organizations "Making More Than Money: A Guide Towards Organizational Sustainability."

Sustainability is a major hurdle for nonprofit organizations, according to Ken Smither, chairman for United Way of Blount County's Nonprofit Training and Resource Center.

"Everybody's got big ideas about the nonprofit business," Smither stated. "Our goal is for them to have sustainability so that we can help them continue to grow."

Sessions will address public relations, outcomes and measurements, innovative fundraising through charitable gaming, and how to establish a nonprofit organization.

Smither explained that the subjects were established through feedback from the last seminar.

"We're trying to emphasize those topics that the nonprofits have told us that they need," Smither said.

Dr. Billy Newton, Director of the Center for Strong Communities at Maryville College, said that the length of individual sessions has increased as well.

"This seminar will provide longer, more in-depth sessions that will help participants strategize for themselves...and to have time in the workshop to process and begin to apply what they're learning to their own situation," commented Newton.

Sharon Hannum, who chairs the Blount County Chamber Foundation Board of Directors, echoed Newton's sentiments.

"To me, it's more important to have quality sessions rather than quantity," Hannum stressed.

Hannum added that the seminar will also focus on networking and collaboration, which are attributes the three organizations have utilized to arrange the seminars.

"We're demonstrating just how strong coming together can be," Hannum remarked. "It's easy for the planning. There are more creative numbers. There's a way to spread around the workload. Talents are being used that may otherwise be stretched."

Newton also noted how important collaborations such as these can be.

"It's really exciting for us to be combining our energies and our resources in this kind of work," Newton emphasized. "It creates a synergy that will be helpful for the whole community."