Rosetta and Heather
In a few weeks, the NP2020 will be bring together individuals from around the country to begin a discussion about leadership in the nonprofit sector at the Pew Campus of Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. One of the conference participants is Young Nonprofit Professionals Network which is focused on the next generation of leaders in the nonprofit sector by supporting their career needs. So, this got me thinking about women who may in the early stages of their nonprofit careers and also blog. Do they exist? What are they writing about?
I follow the Nonprofit Management and Operations blog written by the very talented Heather Carpenter. Heather recently left her job at Aspiration and is moving to San Diego to pursue a PhD in Leadership with nonprofit focus at the University of San Diego. I hope she will find time to continue blogging or at least guest blogging! Her last blog post at her old job is how to prepare for employee transition!
A few weeks ago I discovered the Nonprofit Management Wiki facilitated by Rosetta Thurman who calls herself a "nonprofit geek." The wiki includes an excellent resource list and schedule of nonprofit management professional development opportunities.
Rosetta grew up in the public housing projects in Cleveland, Ohio and went on to college, earning a undergraduate degree in English and a Master's in Organizational Management in Nonprofit Management. She works the Director of Development and Finance for a membership association in Washington, DC. As notes in her biography, "My family didn't have a lot of resources, and if it weren't for the nonprofits in our community who helped us in our times of need, I don't know where I'd be today. Given my own experience, I firmly believe that change is possible, no matter what the situation. I cam to the nonprofit sector to be part of that change."
She writes a blog, called "Perspective from the Pipeline" - a nonprofit professional development blog. It's her observations on the nonprofit sector from the next generation. She received a scholarship to attend the recent Bridge Conference in DC. I attended the conference, but I presented there as well and didn't get a chance to attend as many sessions I would have liked. So, I was pleased to come across her blog posts about the conference.
I spent quite a bit of time searching on Technorati and following blogrolls, but was not able to find other young women working in the nonprofit sector and who are blogging their observations and thoughts about the sector. If you write about this topic, or know of a blog, please leave a url in the comments!
Cross posted at BlogHer.
Yay for Heather! I first met her when I did a presentation on tech planning for a group of nonprofits. She was the accidental-techie-plus at an organization (prior to Aspiration) and was definitely one of the most engaged participants. It's been exciting to see Heather continue this great trajectory.
I know I've encountered other young women bloggers - notably at the Making Media Connections (Chicago) and Spin Conference presentations I did - but I didn't keep individual names or URLs. :-( I can barely keep up reading your blog! ;-)
Posted by: Smoking Goat | July 11, 2007 at 06:04 PM
Beth! Thank you for highlighting my blog in this wonderful post! I'm glad to "know" Heather virtually and look forward to meeting her in person at the NP2020 conference. I have really come to appreciate the strength of technology to connect young nonprofit leaders around the world. And your blog has been my nptech education for awhile now!
I wish I had been able to come to your session at AFP, but I hope to meet you one day as well :)
Posted by: Rosetta Thurman | July 11, 2007 at 07:20 PM
Beth:
You are so sweet. Thank you so very much for blogging about me and Rosetta. I just love sharing resources and thanks so much for linking to my new Nonprofit Leadership Blog.
Here are a couple of other young nonprofit/philanthropic leader blogs I read.
New Voices of Philanthropy--Trista Harris
http://newvoicesofphilanthropy.blogspot.com
Epiphanies-Rusty Stahl
http://epip.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Heather Carpenter | July 13, 2007 at 02:50 PM
Beth,
I thought of you while doing my tagging assignment as I did come up with 8 other nonprofit BlogHers!
Emily at Upside Down Bananas
Tera at Social Citizen
Tracey at Black Gives Back
Heather at Nonprofit Leadership 601
Pam at Nonprofit Eye
Trista at New Voices of Philanthropy
Emily of Nonprofit Blog Exchange
M and M Squared at Inside Foundations
Posted by: Rosetta Thurman | August 02, 2007 at 04:32 PM