Great Rivers – Great Times in Green Bay!

Gary and I headed back from Green Bay, Wisconsin last night after attending the 2017 Great Rivers Conference. It was a wonderful conference and we enjoyed meeting with United Ways from across the Midwest!

While we were at the conference, we presented two sessions and had a lot of great discussions with United Ways about how we can guide them in transforming to an issue focus.

During our first session, "Positioning Your United Way for 2020: What You Must Plan & Start Doing Today," we started by talking about the common communication, resource development, and impact challenges facing United Ways across the country. We then asked United Ways to think about the important question of why their United Way exists and whether they are fundraising-focused or issue-focused. Finally, we discussed the strategies being used by progressive United Ways, such as various issue investment methods, donor-centric methods, and creating a call to action.

Our second session, "Effectively Communicate on Social Media," focused on what people want to know from your United Way and how to use social media effectively, based on our research with United Way donors and community members across the country. We shared examples of how to inform and engage your donors and community members, and attendees had discussions about best practices and ideas for using social media effectively.

We are so glad we had the opportunity to connect with so many wonderful people while attending the conference, and look forward to working with some of you in the near future!