Dialogue with Donors (October 21, 2010) 

On October 18, the San Antonio Area Foundation’s Center for Nonprofit Support hosted a Dialogue With Donors workshop focused on funders and organizations providing services to veterans.  This represents the first in what will be a series of Dialogue With Donors workshops to be focused on critical issues in our community.

This event drew 125 nonprofit professionals from San Antonio, El Paso, Houston, Austin, and the Rio Grande Valley, all representing organizations providing services to help veterans and their families.  About a third were recipients of the TRIAD (Texas Resources for Iraq and Afghanistan) fund grant.  For this group of nonprofits, the workshop included a morning training session on fundraising and grantwriting to help these organizations enhance their ability to leverage their TRIAD funding and expand their resources to serve veterans.

David Nobles, Grant Director for the Texas Veterans Commission, presented the luncheon keynote and described the grant opportunities offered by the State of Texas and offered tips for how to manage the process of applying for those grants.

Lunch was followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Jonathan Gurwitz of the San Antonio Express News, which included representatives of the McCormick Foundation, the Walmart Foundation, the Boeing Company, and Blue Shield of California Foundation.  Each  representative provided the audience with valuable advice on how to work with the group of foundations that provide support for services to veterans and their families.  Panelists noted that although the community of funders addressing the issue of veterans is small, they interact frequently with each other and refer grant candidates to each other.                           

The last hour of the workshop included an opportunity for nonprofit representatives to meet face-to-face with foundation representatives and learn more about how to fundraise and develop programs for service to veterans.

The Area Foundation’s Center for Nonprofit Support looks forward to presenting three additional Dialogue with Donor workshops during the next six months.

For more information about the Center for Nonprofit Support contact Francesca Rattray or phone 210.242.4711

…helping donors achieve their charitable goals for the greater benefit of the community