ALAMOSA — What would happen if nonprofits gathered simply to spend time together, network, and resource share? What if the focus was not fundraising or meeting agendas, but quality time spent together to learn and think creatively?

Those are the questions that launched the San Luis Valley Nonprofit Collaboration Summit. The summit is a time to meet other SLV residents working for or volunteering with nonprofits, deepen understanding of community needs and resources, build bridges and partnerships, and gain some knowledge or skill relatable to your work.

The third annual San Luis Valley Nonprofit Collaboration Summit is scheduled for Wednesday October 17th, at the River of Life Church in Alamosa from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Registration is open now! Visit: sanluisvalleyrpd.org to register.

This year, attendees can participate in two unique 90-minute workshops. Workshop topics are:

1) Servant Leadership: This is an attitude of organizational growth that can be adopted by anyone, anywhere on the organizational chart. It is leadership from an attitude of service, helping everyone in the organization to grow into their best selves.

2) Connecting Your Passion and Purpose in your Life and Work: Participants will cover the fundamentals of mindfulness and creativity and how they drive us and bring meaning to our lives and work. Participants will learn about the six practices of personal effectiveness and develop a personal vision to guide you in all aspects of their lives.

3) Changing of the Guard: This session will discuss the opportunities and roadblocks for developing the next generation of nonprofit leadership. How can we support new, emerging leaders and what do current leaders need to help them successfully transition?

4) Work Style for Team Achievement: Learn more about their work style, and how to bring out the best in others as you collaborate to meet your mission.

5) Workplace Collaboration: How does collaboration operate and function in the workplace? What are the tools, advantages and learned lessons?

6) Improving Technology in the workplace and partnerships: Are you using Google Drive? Boggled by Doodle? Are you tweeting, posting and Gramming through Hootsuite?  Have you tried Trello? Can you Canva like a pro? If you aren’t using these tools, you are likely spending unnecessary time organizing information and producing content. Learn best practices, tips and tricks, and gain basic functional level skills, for navigating the Ten Best Tools available to non-profit professionals.

The summit is an interim event that takes place in the years between Rural Philanthropy Days, which is a conference that comes to the Valley every four years. Rural Philanthropy Days is scheduled to be in the SLV again in the fall of 2019. At the summit, there will be a lunch session hosted by the Community Resource Center which will focus on providing information about, and collecting feedback for the 2019 Rural Philanthropy Days Conference.

The impacts of the summit include stronger relationships between organizations, more resource sharing and workplace skill development. People are finding they’re learning about nonprofits in their own communities they never even knew about before. In 2017 participants took part in a design thinking process to pose possible solutions to some community challenges. Out of last year’s summit, the Nonprofit Resource Center was birthed. A committee of nonprofit leaders has been hard at work over the past year and will present their recommendation at this year’s Summit. The Anschutz Family Foundation provided a start up grant.

The summit is a wonderful event for people with all levels of nonprofit experience, whether they are staff, volunteer, board member or other.

Lunch will be provided and early registration is only $15. The registration cost will increase on Wednesday, October 10th. Be sure to put this event on your calendar and register today. For more information contact Amy Scavezze by email: [email protected]. Or by phone: (719) 588-5753.