What to Watch For at SXSW 2010 – The Nonprofit Edition

Depending on who you ask, it may or may not be a surprise that SXSW 2010 has become a destination for nonprofit staffers. With fifteen percent-ish attendees working with nonprofits, SXSW can be inspirational. It’s the perfect place to meet change agents like Beth Kanter, David Neff, and Amy Sample Ward, as well as network and learn from your peers at other nonprofits. But the attendees are just the beginning…

Building on its success from last year, Beaconfire Consulting will again be sponsoring The Beacon: Lounge with a Conscience. One of three lounges at SXSW, The Beacon is the place to hang if you’re representing the nonprofit sector. You can stop by for SoapBox lunches each day, where you can turn your donation to a worthy cause into a tasty lunch. Each afternoon, The Beacon Stage will feature an acoustic performance to benefit the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. I’m really excited that Blackbaud is sponsoring the stage this year, and can’t wait to hear some of the great artists.

When you find yourself leaving The Lounge, there are plenty of great sessions to attend. Blackbaud’s Frank Barry will be moderating Debunking the Myth of Social Media Fundraising. Along with friends from Tweetsgiving (Epic Change), The Lance Armstrong Foundation, and Charity Dynamics, real examples of how nonprofits can use social marketing to raise money will be discussed.

Here are the sessions that caught my eye and made it onto my messy schedule (in order of appearance):

• Technology For Results Not Profits – Saturday, March 13 at 11 a.m.
  The LifeChurch.tv team will discuss how passion impacts technology for nonprofits.
• A Conversation About Social Change Through Social Media – Saturday, March 13 at 12:30 p.m. Mark Horvath from InvisiblePeople.tv discusses how good storytelling is a three-way conversation.
• Debunking the Myth of Social Media Fundraising – Saturday, March 13 at 12:30 p.m. This panel looks at how nonprofit organizations are raising money via social media.
• Digital Marketing for Non-Profits – Saturday, March 13 at 3:30 p.m. Learn how the L.A. Philharmonic Association built an online brand and increased giving in a failing economy.
• Uprising Tide – Inciting Online Communities into Offline Movements – Saturday, March 13 at 3:30 p.m. A look at how organic net-roots movements were started in New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
• Crowd Sourcing Innovative Social Change – Sunday, March 14 at 3:30 p.m. This panel will share the best innovative nonprofit ideas from the crowd-sourced Social Change Challenge.
• It’s Time to Save the World with Design Thinking – Sunday, March 14 at 3:30 p.m. With design thinking we can change the world by seeing why problems happen – then solve them.
• Dinosaur to Digital: A Museum Convergence Success Story – Sunday, March 14 at 5:00 p.m. Learn how a traditional museum in SF used online tools to position itself as a valuable resource and social hub.
• Games For Good – Monday, March 15 at 12:30 p.m. Hear from nonprofits who have made games to support their mission that people actually use.
• Change the World, Lives, with Bikes – Tuesday, March 16 at 11:00 a.m. A great look at how cycling and social media are changing the world
  through online communities and events.
• Will Kiva Kill Your Nonprofit? Donations 2.0 – Tuesday, March 16 at 11:00 a.m.
  Learn how your nonprofit can adapt to a world that includes distributed donation groups like Kiva.

Besides attending the sessions above and hanging at The Beacon, there are a few other activities you should pencil into your schedule. The Convio Nonprofit Technology Bash is on Tuesday evening, and is a perfect place to meetup and get ready for all the closing night parties. Also, be sure to check out CauseLab, which is launching on March 15 in the Hilton. They are inviting disrupters and innovators from all disciplines to solve three main challenges to ending hunger in America, and will be holding brainstorming sessions throughout this year’s SXSW.

That’s all for now. Please let me know what I missed, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all later this week!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

sgENGAGE Team