As part of our agenda planning process for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference, we hosted a community planning call this past Friday. It was chock full of great ideas and direction (not to mention threats of pinching) for the 10NTC Agenda.

I'll try to synthesize all the great discussion on the topics and themes we'll be looking to include in each of our 5 conference tracks: Leadership, Fundraising, Communications, IT Staff and Consultants and Program.  If you missed it (or were there but have something else to add), please add your 2 cents in the comments. 

Leadership

• Cross-departmental strategy and planning.  IT Alignment session was good but Fundraising Alignment and overall strategy alignment with mission type sessions would be good. 
• More in-depth, financial metric focused ROI, perhaps in a Roundtable discussion format
• Back office technologies and management
• Change Management
• Communications strategy from a leadership perspective - don't leap frog strategy when it comes to social media, Strategy on Steroids!

Fundraising

• ROI on Fundraising Metrics -- fundraising sessions need to incorporate concrete fundraising metrics, even when focus is communications strategy
• Storytelling as it pertains to Fundraising
• Sessions on how to use free/low-cost tech really efficiently for prospect research
• Session(s) on longitudinal measurement of income via on-line/on-phone giving
• Love to see some discussion of strategic planning for continuing economic hardship as in Chris Martenson's Crash Course
• Nicci Noble on both fundraising / communications

Communications

• Staffing-related sessions around social media policies
• @dmarx from Energy Action Coalition gave a really awesome presentation at Google this week on how he and his team are using online tools to not only communicate / collaborate as a team but also using those tools to communicate out to members of their coalition and the voting public at large
• Communications Makeoever: Take an organization, review their communications strategy and make it over in light of new technologies. Should take into account current economic situation. Could be a great engagement piece for reaching new organizations or those who haven't attended...? Iron Chef Communications (not just website)
• Civic Actions on website content strategy and SEO
• Love to see @cariegrls present about the way she's using tools to do reputation management for Humane Society. Some people know about what she's doing with iGoogle, but it would be great to see her present on that.
• Integration of traditional website and social media, of all communications channels
• Internal communications - strategies, intranet, etc
• Incorporating a blog into your communication strategy -- building a following, how it mixes with your media strategy in messaging to your stakeholders.
• Strategies for managing multiple social media channels
• How do you build communications between your members/constituents -- to get members comfortable using new media tools to interact with each other. If you build it, they will come, does not apply to social networking. "I built it... why didn't they come?"

IT Track

• IPv6
• Sharepoint
• Knowledge mgmt, super internet tools - strategy and tools
• html5
• Data security and compliance
• PCI Compliance - are there good alternatives to having your own / any good?
• Disaster recovery, preparedness - most of my nonprofit peers are lucky to think about business continuity at all, just like SF residents: they know they should but don't have an earthquake plan
• Business continuity - implentation that would happen in an IT track, different angles for same topic
• Moving to cloud services

Program

• Creating online community for members - security and privacy, moderation
• Sessions on engaging volunteers, and on using SM for education/outreach rather then just fundraising or talking about your org
• Innovative program delivery
• Data visulization
• How programs can use technology projects to build collaborations in their community to better deliver services to clients. For instance, in legal aid orgs, programs are collaborating with courts and libraries to build self help centers using document assembly software

Other recommendations

• Cross fertilization in leadership groups like NTEN and AFP - suggestion from phone: bring in Fundraising (or other, per topic) expert from other organizations (like AFP) to participate or help plan content for that track
• Categorize/tagging sessions or content for organization size or type

Thanks again to all who participated. Don't forget to add your thoughts for the 2010 NTC Agenda in the comments.

You can read about the rest of the agenda planning process here. 

And, here's the full chat transcript for more details from the call: