What a fantastic event in beautiful Nanaimo BC!

Eric and I (Alex) were excited to co-host this Non-Profit Meetup at Input’s Cowork, located in downtown Nanaimo. There was a wonderful turnout, with two dozen nonprofit leaders in attendance.

Our focus was to create space for nonprofits to meet each other, with a focus on technological problems and solutions.

I truly believe that nonprofits are efficient, effective, and motivated to make great use of technology. There’s a misperception out there, among some people, that nonprofits are somehow less efficient or old-school. I don’t believe that, and this event was evidence of the power of nonprofits to collaborate and share knowledge.

Eric and I spoke about the importance of understanding your ‘tech stack’ - the suite of digital tools you use to get your job done - how you communicate, manage projects, track donors and members, do your accounting, and of course, manage your volunteers!

We asked attendees to talk about some of the problems they’re facing, and heard about challenges with internal communications, accounting systems, and CRMs. We also heard about solutions to these problems, and offered some of our own knowledge.

There was a big appetite in Nanaimo for more of this kind of networking, collaborating, & problem-solving. We promised to follow up and look into setting up a platform of communication for local nonprofits. Stay tuned on that!

If you missed the event and would like to learn more about Purposely or the topic we discussed at the meetup, reach out to me at amcgowan@purposely.ca! I'd also be happy to share our slides with you.

Much love Nanaimo!