New interactive masterclasses at International Fundraising Congress

Delegates to the 28th International Fundraising Congress (IFC) in Holland in October will have the chance to experience a new interactive 'hands-on' session as part of its six-hour long masterclasses that run before the main conference gets underway.

The Resource Alliance, which organises the IFC,
aims to ensure that delegates experience even more practical learning during the masterclasses, rather than simply absorbing what the speakers have to say.

For example, one hands-on session will give delegates the opportunity to practise data mining and analysis using a real charity database that has been loaned to the IFC for this purpose. Another one will give fundraisers the chance to set up their own profiles on social networking sites.

Alan Bird, marketing and communications director at the Resource Alliance, said: "The masterclass sessions were always meant to really challenge delegates and get them thinking in new ways. We've always had an interactive element to them but this was usually up to how the presenter chose to run the session."

The interactive masterclasses for the 28 International Fundraising Congress are:

* Social media tools to support fundraising, delivered by new media expert Beth Kanter.

* Sure fire major gift ‘asking & closing’ - a hands-on, personal coaching workshop from American relationship fundraising expert Karen Osborne.

* Implementing donor insights for real, delivered by Jan Chisolm and Sean Triner of Australian fundraising agency Pareto, using a real Australian charity's 2003-2007 database (minus personal identifiers of course).

* The copywriter's clinic – crafting brilliant letters, emails and telemarketing scripts for breakthrough fundraising results, delivered by US copywriting expert and chair of the Resource Alliance Mal Warwick.

The introduction of the new interactive masterclasses follows 2007's successful masterclass CSR Alive!, in which delegates were taken off-site to visit a Dutch charity and its corporate partner to see how their corporate social responsibility partnership worked in practice.

Delivered by Canadian fundraiser Tony Myers and Zoltan Valcissak, senior manager of community and corporate citizenship at Levi Strauss Europe, CSR Alive! was effectively a mini-CSR conference within the main IFC and will be repeated this year due to popular demand.

The 28th International Fundraising Congress takes place from 14-17 October 2008 at Leeuwenhorst in the Netherlands.

www.resource-alliance.org/ifc/sessions/