Brian Hagberg
WARREN, Pa. – The Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry recently honored the first class of the Elevating Nonprofit Initiative, a program designed to help nonprofit organizations grow in Warren County.
The Elevating Nonprofit Initiative is a 6-class course, facilitated by Strategy Solutions, aimed at giving nonprofit administrators and board members the tools they need to strengthen their organizations. The first cohort of eight students held a graduation ceremony at the Conewango Club on July 18.
“This really was our pilot class,” WCCBI Director of Chamber Operations and Tourism John Papalia said. “So we kept that class kind of small and intimate for a reason, which I think was awesome because people really got to know each other and share ideas.”
Both Papalia and Strategy Solutions founder Debbie Thompson said the feedback they received from this first class was almost universally positive.
“The worst thing that people have said about the program is that we’ve hit them with a firehose of information,” Thompson said. “It’s a little overwhelming because we’ve shared so much (about) best practices and nonprofit leadership.”
The course also helped foster relationships between not just the students, but their organizations as well.
“I think what was really powerful is that the folks that went through it just kind of really came together, networking and learning,” Papalia said.
The graduation ceremony was the culmination of an idea Papalia began discussing a couple of years ago.
“I was discussing with two different nonprofit agencies the need to better serve that sector of the economy,” Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry Director of Chamber Operations and Tourism John Papalia said. “And what can we do to help build training, build capacity and give the nonprofit leaders as many tools as possible to be able to run efficiently and grow? Because the need that they serve is great. We strengthen our nonprofits, we strengthen our communities.”
To that end, Papalia began making inquiries about the need and working with organizations throughout the county, including Andy Sokolski of the Sokolski Family Foundation who Papalia said “became a really great partner” in the process. Other agencies that sponsored the Initiative include the Warren County Commissioners, LeMeur Foundation, and Community Foundation of Warren County.
“We formed ourselves a planning committee made up of key stakeholders in our community, got them together, and started talking about this initiative,” Papalia said.
Enter Strategy Solutions, who modified the courses they’d been providing on an a la carte basis to organizations in Erie County to create a new cohort-oriented offering.
“We started talking about how do we take this curriculum that we’ve taught over and over and over again, and create a process that is going to be helpful to the group in Warren,” Thompson said. “We called it a cohort model. You’re going to start and finish together and we’re going to create a process that we’re going to help you look at where you’re at, where you want to be, and set goals for improvement.”
Papalia said one of the only negatives attendees said about the course was that the group didn’t meet more frequently.
“One thing that came out of it is they would have liked to have met more,” Papalia said. “In other words, they would have liked to have met in between each session. Having a space in between for people to get together and just share ideas and talk about what was learned was a lot of the feedback that we got.”
The cohort met once a month for six months. Some of the most consistent feedback students gave, Papalia said, was that they wanted to meet at least once between sessions to discuss ways to apply what they had learned. That feedback will likely be applied to the next course, scheduled to begin in January.
“The goal, the ultimate goal here, is to continue to improve as many nonprofits here in Warren County as we can, which then again, better serves our community,” Papalia said. “I’m a big believer in the all ships rise mentality that we can just make Warren County stronger.”
To inquire about next year’s class, contact Papalia at 814-723-3050.
