Resource Alliance to hold first virtual fundraising conference
Howard Lake | 6 February 2009 | News
The Resource Alliance, the capacity-building organisation that has run the International Fundraising Conference since 1980, will this year host IFC Online, “the world’s first virtual fundraising conference”.
The virtual conference will take place from 12 to 14 May 2009, and the Resource Alliance expect over 1,000 fundraisers from around the world to take part.
The plenary speakers will be Premal Shah, founder of the micro-finance website Kiva.org, Ramya Raghavan, manager of nonprofits and activism at YouTube, and Scott Goodstein, who ran the mobile and social networks element of the Obama presidential campaign.
They will be joined by a range of renowned international experts who will present a series of webinars on digital and new media fundraising. These include Jason Potts (UK), Marcello Iniarra (Argentina), Nick Allen (USA), Mal Warwick (USA), and Mike Johnston (Canada).
The IFC Online programme consists of 10 60-minute practical ‘workshops’ (including 30 minutes questions and answers) and three 45-minute plenaries (including a 15-minute question and answer session).
Each workshop will be delivered twice over the three-day period from 12-14 May, 2009; plenaries will be delivered once only.
“This is a natural development for us,” said Resource Alliance chief executive Simon Collings.
“With fundraising moving into digital at an ever increasing rate, we need to deliver our highest quality training to fundraisers through the same medium they are using”.
The Resource Alliance plans to run the event annually. This year’s conference will focus exclusively on new media fundraising “because we think that it will be digital fundraisers who will be the early adopters of this new education format”, said Collings.
However, the organisation plans to expand the programme in future years to address the whole fundraising portfolio.
The conference will be produced in partnership with US online training provider Forum for Fundraising, with Learning Times, an online community for American training professionals, hosting the conference website.
As well as the educational sessions there will be an online community with member introduction areas, downloadable materials, and topic-based discussion areas.
To attend delegates simply need an Internet connection with “a good connection speed” and access to a phone line. The registration fee for for IFC Online is US$275 (£190).
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.