The largest U.S. gathering of voluntary effort — the National Conference on Volunteering and Service — will take place in San Francisco in just a couple weeks. The nonprofit workshop track at the conference is among the largest, with over 100 presentations.
The National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS) is the Fashion Week of the service world in the United States. It’s taking place June 22-24 (plus various pre- and post-meetings), at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
It’s a time to see old friends from across the country, to meet new people engaged in their communities in innovative ways, to catch up on trends and best practices in volunteering, nonprofit management, and national service, and to learn about new opportunities and programs that are tabling as part of the expo. (This year, Idealist.org is hosting a career center in the expo, which I wrote about in March.)
Among the countless events taking place throughout the multi-day event, the conference boasts 170 workshops — about 110 of which are part of its nonprofit track.
Topics vary widely and include
- social media for service learning
- nonprofit management
- group and family volunteering
- helping volunteers retire with dignity
- mobilizing organizational change, and
- Summer of Service strategies (featuring Shirley Sagawa, and Jean Manney — Jean is a colleague of Colleen Hammelman, a contributor to The New Service blog)
- including members and volunteers with cognitive and developmental disabilities in volunteer programs (led by colleagues of Sarah Kaplan, also contributer to this blog. See other workshops that the National Service Inclusion Project will offer.)
- And many, many more.
Attendees also come from government and business sectors. Organizers have established other workshop tracks in addition to the nonprofit track mentioned above, to help conference participants register wisely:
Conference goers are urged to register for the sessions they’d like to attend — and to be courteous to others if their plans change and they decide to drop in to other sessions at the last moment— by waiting to enter and sit down if seating is limited.
Register for the conference; check out the conference blog; and follow NCVS on Twitter.
The New Service 