The Power of the ‘Ask’—It all Starts and Grows
with Powerful Relationships
Andrea Nierenberg

Have you ever wondered how some people possess the type of skills that make them shine and stand out in a crowd? They are able to walk into a room, create a presence, make connections and connect with more donations and gifts and walk away with stronger relationships and advocates.

In this session, the whole focus will be on the opportunity of implementing the techniques of networking and how to connect, engage and interact with our contacts and prospects to create and develop more connections in a positive relationship building way. We will discuss how fundraising is truly first ‘friend raising’ and how to develop and keep those powerful alliances and connections.

The Wall Street Journal called Andrea Nierenberg a "networking success story." She is a master at helping others build their interpersonal skills to create strong connections. Ms. Nierenberg is known as a business development authority who demonstrates how to balance today’s high-speed communications with the people skills that transcend time and technology. She specializes in Presentation Skills/Media Training, Communication Skills, Business Development, Customer Service and Management Training. With over a 23 year sales and marketing background, Ms. Nierenberg heads The Nierenberg Group, a business consulting firm based in New York.

Want to Become a More Effective Leader?
Tell Stories!
Evelyn Clark

If you want to become a more effective leader, you need to tell stories! Since the beginning of time, human beings have communicated with stories, through pictographs and petroglyphs, shamans and oracles, pony express riders and itinerant salesmen, and now the news media—and some, but relatively few, government and business leaders.

Stories are powerful tools for informing, learning, persuading, inspiring and entertaining, and yet in today’s world, they often take a back seat to sterile bullet points and info-nuggets. As a result, crucial messages are quickly forgotten.

Author of Around the Corporate Campfire: How Great Leaders Use Stories to Inspire Success, the award-winning writer has developed results-oriented communications for a range of clients, both as a business owner and as vice president of a Seattle public relations agency.

Evelyn Clark delivers keynotes, leads customized workshops, facilitates retreats, and develops values-centered core stories for premier organizations. Her two presentations at the 2004 National Storytelling Conference created a memorable “buzz.” Among her clients are Microsoft, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the National Reconnaissance Office, Philips Medical Systems—Ultrasound, and World Vision.

How to Make Ideas Stick:
Six Hints from Urban Legends
Chip Heath

Many essential messages don't stick. This presentation argues that we can learn a lot about making our own messages stay with people and motivate them to act by looking at naturally sticky ideas: Urban legends don't have advertising budgets or PR assistance, they survive and spread on their own. This presentation discusses six principles that can help us make our own messages stick with people. The presentation is based on a book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, co-authored with his brother, Dan (Random House, January 2007).

Chip Heath is a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. For the last eight years he has been studying why ideas survive in the social marketplace of ideas. He has taught courses on strategy and mission to over 190 organizations in the social sector ranging from dance companies to political advocacy groups to drug treatment clinics.

How to Change the World
David Bornstein

After extensive travels in Bangladesh, India, Brazil, North America and Eastern Europe, David Bornstein has emerged as a leading expert in the global rise of “social entrepreneurism.”

He tells compelling stories about how individuals and organizations around the globe are achieving massive and meaningful changes through social entrepreneurship. Along the way he highlights the messages, strategies, inspirations and creative ways of using limited resources that have made these individuals or groups highly successful in their endeavors.

A journalist by training, Bornstein is also the author of an acclaimed book on the micro-credit movement, The Price of a Dream, and has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, and New York Newsday.

Claire Raines

Author, consultant, and speaker Claire Raines works with companies around the world to help them understand and incorporate differences. She has been studying generations for more than 20 years and has published her findings in five award-winning books.

Raines has been featured widely in the media, including CNN Financial News, the Today Show, Business Week and Fast Company. Her clients include Microsoft, Toyota, American Express, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, MasterCard, Coca-Cola and Sprint.