Over the past several months, volunteers on the CGP Conference Committee have worked together to curate sessions and topics to offer attendees the latest professional development and educational opportunities at CGP Conference. Members of the Conference Committee have developed specialized tracks tailored for different sectors of the planned giving community.

​Julianne Buck, CAP®, Executive Director at the Community Foundation of Grundy County, created a track for small and rural practitioners. This track offers sessions with proven strategies and tools to help smaller teams leverage their skills for greater outcomes. 

It can be intimidating to attend a national conference when your day-to-day activities operate in a small nonprofit or a rural community.  We don’t have the resources of urban America and, honestly, we just do things differently.

Even though we don’t have a track for “small and/or rural,” you can design your own track with these tips:

Tuesday at 10:00 am is “Bridging Generations: The Power of Inter-generational Philanthropy.”  Inter-generational relations is especially powerful in rural America – in both positive and negative ways.  Some of us rural kids run away after high school and never return.  How does a nonprofit in rural America communicate with the grandparents and parents who are still local as well as the kids who are now adults living and working outside the home area?

The Transfer of Wealth Study is especially helpful for this conversation. The dance is to try to get the elder generations to secure some of their wealth at the local level to improve and maintain the local quality of life where that wealth was grown before it transfers to heirs who don’t live local and will most likely not use any of their inherited wealth to support their hometown.

Also on Tuesday at 10:00 am is “Imposter Syndrome: Stop Doubting…You DO Know What You’re Doing!”  I see so many nonprofit executive directors in rural America and small nonprofits anywhere be timid when out and about. Please don’t! You don’t have to be an expert on everything, but you are the expert in your own little sphere.

We nonprofits are experts in our topic, whether hunger, child abuse, fine arts, education, health, or domestic violence. No one in the community knows more about this topic than you and I want you to strut it. Sit down with mayors and other VIPs one-on-one once a year and update them on the status of your topic. Present at city council meetings and county board meetings. Write white papers and invite peers to co-author them with you. And, most of all, talk with donors and their advisors about your topic. Donors and their advisors listen to experts. Be that expert.

Register for CGP Conference to attend these insightful sessions and empower your fundraising team to achieve greater success. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from industry experts and connect with gift planning peers dedicated to advancing the field of fundraising. 
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Meet ​Julianne Buck, CAP®:
Julianne Buck, CAP®, is one of those kids who grew up rural, ran away to university, had a career in urban America, and then came home to work and raise her family, so rural quality of life is very important to her. For the past 21 years, she has been the first and only Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Grundy County. She has taken the Foundation’s assets from $0 to $15 million and has ingrained the Foundation as a partner throughout the region. CFGC is in compliance with National Standards and has set the following 2023 strategic grantmaking priorities: 1) mental health and 2) out-of-school hours programming for children and families. Throughout her career, Julianne has served on the boards of a number of nonprofits and professional associations.  Most recently, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Council on Planned Giving and is co-chair of CCPG’s annual day of learning Symposium. In order to share her knowledge and expertise outside of Grundy County, Julianne has launched Nonprofit Brains & Brawn, LLC, a consulting firm dedicated to nonprofits, donors, and professional advisors.