The annual Minnesota Council of Nonprofits conference, one of the biggest and best nonprofit conferences in the world, begins Thursday (10/6/11). I look forward to this event every year, as a chance to connect with Minnesota’s thriving nonprofit community, catch up with people representing our 57 Minnesota clients, and learn and share best practices and new ideas.

Here’s a sneak preview of two sessions we are leading:

Developing Your Web and Social Media Properties: A Checklist
Thursday, October 6, 3:15 – 4:30 p.m.

Led by William Naylor and Karen Graham of thedatabank

Come to hear my colleague William run through a nuts and bolts checklist for online engagement, and find out why there’s a picture of a hoverboard in our slides. Also, don’t worry – we’ll only take a brief dive into HTML code, and if you are geek-a-phobic you can close your eyes for that part. This is a great session for nonprofit marketing and communications folks who need to get a handle on many online communication channels, from web to social media. (Photo credit: popculture.com | CC some rights reserved)

Benchmarking for Communications Effectiveness
Friday, October 7, 7:45 – 8:45 a.m.

Led by Adam Oien of thedatabank and our BFF Richard Matson-Daley

If you love data, scatter graphs, and quotes about fish – this is the session for you. Adam and Richard are thinking nationally and applying locally in their MCN session. Find out how Minnesota based organizations’ open rates, average online donation, response rates, and other communication effectiveness scores measure up to the rest of the nation. In this session they’ll take a look at nonprofit organizations that cover a range of causes, budgets and staff sizes in order to understand what our MN benchmarks are for the typical nonprofit organization.

If you’re attending, don’t forget to stop by Booth #69 in the Exhibit Area and enter our drawing for a Nook. Look for our blue Databank shirts around the conference!