I have had people say that we should make Dane County Neighbors a nonprofit. That is not going to happen plain and simple. If this were to become a nonprofit, it would become just another nonprofit. We all know that we have enough of those. The strength of Dane County Neighbors is in its being a grassroots community. This effort is whatever the community wants it to be. Our strength as a community lies in facilitating conversations and bringing people together. An organizational framework would distract from our core mission.
There is a lot of work yet to be done on making sure that we have the impact on the community that we want a have. This group is powerful because it is a place where people are able to offer help to the neighbors without having to donate any actual dollars. I have heard that loud and clear and we will not be going forward with any fundraising efforts. An idea that I've heard and like a great deal is highlighting smaller grassroots nonprofits or other efforts that are just getting off the ground that many might have not heard of and using this group to give them a signal boost. This is something that I think is a great idea and I think we should think about having team months around that idea.
Thanks for being a part of this,
Paulo