Have you noticed there are a lot of new faces around our area? Have you made an effort to put a name with those faces? I was visiting with a business owner the other day and they said, “I go to the grocery store and I don’t know anyone in there. It’s so awesome to see all those new faces!” Here at On Hand Development, getting those new faces connected to our community is a goal we take seriously.
We hear it all the time, “What was going on at the Center last night? It looked like a huge event. What would we do without that place?” When we drive by there is always something going on there!” And lately, that couldn’t be truer.
I recently visited Austin Texas and their slogan is, “Keep Austin Weird.” We saw this on T Shirts, hats, cups, billboards, business windows, bumper stickers, EVERYWHERE. Keep Austin Weird is the slogan adopted by the Austin Independent Business Alliance to promote small businesses in Austin, Texas. It is intended to promote local businesses and is inspired by comments made by Red Wassenich in 2000 while giving a pledge to an Austin radio station.
For the last year, I have been participating in the South Dakota Nonprofit Capacity Building Program. This credentialed professional development opportunity is a 15-month training program that involves: 1) Four fundraising courses taught by faculty from The Fundraising School at Indiana University 2) Attainment of CFRE credentials 3) Activities with a statewide cohort of South Dakota fundraising professionals.