It’s been a month since NDPC hosted the NFPW national conference, and we can hardly believe how fast that month has flown by. It was a delight to have so many NFPW members join us in Fargo and experience so much of what our incredible community has to offer. 

As we organize our conference notes and begin to apply what we learned, we wanted to share a few important takeaways:

• Nicole Phillips, Kindness advocate, taught us that we are in control of our thoughts and it’s important for us to be aware of where our thoughts are throughout the day; in fact, she challenged us to set an alarm as a reminder to stop and think about what you’re thinking about as well as to create a mantra to reject and replace unhelpful thoughts.
  
  

• Former Washington Post reporter and “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now” author Chris Ingraham delighted us with stories about his entertaining experiences in Red Lake Falls, but also shared the challenges of publishing work through a newsletter versus a larger distribution method. 
  
  

• Bold North brand creator and former Michelle Obama staffer Andrea Mokros enlightened us on building a brand that is both authentic (real and true) and accessible (everyone can embrace and relate to) and reminded us that a brand is not just what you say but what you do and how people experience it.
  
  

• In his delightful presentation, consultant and fundraiser Patrick Kirby gave us several ideas for treating customers/clients like nonprofit donors, such as leading with appreciation, engaging creatively and not being afraid to pick the phone to make a phone call or send a thank you note (or five!). Patrick also mentioned some important questions to ask donors/clients/customers to get to know them and said he'd send those later, which he did. These are the questions:

1. In your own words, tell me a bit about the work you do! (My website interpretation is only so good!)
2. What are you most proud of in the last year?
3. What are you most excited about in the next year?
4. Where are you seeing others struggle in your industry?
5. What are innovations that make you excited for the future of your work?
6. What do you love the most about your job? Your team?
7. Where do you see your team focusing their efforts? How do you show up for each other?
8. What issues is your team passionate about?
9. Where do you look for ideas to innovate your work?
10. Is there anything I can do to help?

• Public relations exec Michelle Olson enlightened us on why diversity and inclusion is so important in communications professions, pointing us to the many resources available at voices4everyone.prsa.org. 
  
  

• For anyone who attended the passion panel, Rebecca Undem published the blog post she mentioned about how burnout can actually be about being snuffed out. She mentioned during the panel that she was writing this and had not yet published it. Attendees might be interested in reading the final post.
  
  

• For anyone who attended the podcasting panel, Jessie Woinarowicz from Glaze and Grit put together some great notes and information about podcasting available at https://www.glazeandgritpodcast.com/nfpw. Password is nfpw.

The conference was full of so much more information, but those are some highlights and follow-up info we wanted to share. You can read so much more in the July edition of Agenda, including more about LuAnn Schindler, the national COA; our very own Tracy Frank, the sweepstakes winner, and so much more from the national conference.