I’m Still Learning

A few weeks ago, I watched as my seven-year-old son encouraged his great-grandmother to play a video game with him.  Gently, yet persistently, my grandmother assured him, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  Albert Einstein had a different perspective: “Once you stop learning, you start dying.”  Whether Einstein would have embraced playing Mario Cart on Wii Uor not, we’ll never know.  But I’ve decided to embrace Einstein’s perspective, and I really believe my grandmother has too – she just chooses to use crossword puzzles and Scrabble to continue learning.

Many nonprofits focus on learning, but that message is typically directed to stakeholders. We aren’t always so great at directing the message of continued learning back to ourselves as nonprofit professionals.

KNN’s increased focus on creating a strong, unified public policy voice for nonprofits has given me lots of learning opportunities.  As KNN launches an all-hands-on-deck effort to seek passage of HCR 89 to create a task force to examine and improve nonprofit contractual relationships with state government, there is much to learn.  While challenging at times, I am embracing the things I’m learning about the legislative process and lobbying – even things I dislike.  I am blessed to have the guidance and support of wonderful KNN board and public policy committee members.  Their combined expertise, my persistence to tackle this important public policy priority, and our legislative champions combined with your partnership on this important issue will be a powerful coalition working to secure passage of HCR 89 – or at least initiate a much needed conversation.

If you haven’t gotten up to speed yet on why this issue of nonprofit and government contracting matters to each of us, please check out my blog post from last week and this updated summary.

KNN will also be learning during this year’s third annual Kentucky Gives Day.  We announced last week that we are moving this statewide 24-hour giving event to December 1, 2015 to take advantage of the growing momentum and success of #GivingTuesday.  We will be learning alongside our members in this effort, so that we can continue to find the best ways to harness the power of social media to encourage online giving.

I once heard a speaker say that growth is uncomfortable – and I believe that’s true.  I also believe these learning opportunities will help KNN stay on top of our game by looking forward and making bold moves to advance our nonprofit community

If you will stand with us on this journey to continue learning and growing, I’m certain we will empower our nonprofit community and strengthen Kentucky.