Chico, California (November 5, 2009) – Local nonprofit leaders have the opportunity to participate in two trainings in December provided by the Nonprofit Leadership Institute, a program of North Valley Community Foundation. On Monday, December 7, the topic will be “Telling Your Story – Marketing Your Nonprofit”. On Monday, December 14, the topic will be “Bringing IT all Together – Internet Tech Solutions for Nonprofits.”

The instructor for the December 7 session will be JoAna Brooks, consultant to nonprofit organizations and former Executive Director of Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The instructor for the December 14 session will be Donald Peterson, IT consultant.

Both of these classes will help nonprofits to respond to the current economic difficulties. Board members and executive staff of nonprofits won't want to miss these trainings.  Each class will be from 8:30AM-12:30PM and costs $60.

The half day session on December 7, “Telling Your Story- Marketing Your Non-profit”, is for staff and volunteers of nonprofit organizations that want to increase their visibility in the community. Many organizations become known as "the community's best kept secret". Tell your story!  Effective marketing is the key to getting your story out into the community.  The key to effective marketing is a plan.  For many non-profits, marketing happens only occasionally and is limited to local newspaper and television advertising.  Participants will learn marketing strategies and how to develop a marketing plan and campaign, to change that "best kept secret" into "the community's best resource".

The December 14 class offers nonprofits a chance to move into the Web 2.0 environment.  New and established nonprofit organizations will learn about blogs, content management systems, semantic web design, twitter and the like. Don Peterson worked for a year to understand his unique audience and to design this course to fit the nonprofit sector. His not-so-secret hope is to bring many of these organizations out of the dark ages and into the low cost access to web technology that can serve the organization’s marketing, advocacy and development needs.

Both trainings are in Chico, at the Training Place on the Chico Campus of Butte Community College, 2320 Forest Avenue. For further details and registration, contact NVCF at 891-1150 or register online at www.nvcf.org.  Reservations should be made in advance, as registration is limited.