Make sure to welcome our new interns: Sarah Estes and Johnny Kraps!
If you have any questions regarding the site or just want to share a cool article that you've read, contact them at gwcintern@gmail.com

Sarah Estes is a senior Marketing major at Eastern Illinois University.  She holds a degree in Foreign Languages and Literature, focusing in Spanish, from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. 

Since the age of 12, she has been involved in a variety of volunteer service and nonprofit groups. This position is an exciting opportunity for her to learn more about professional nonprofits, and she hopes to develop a career in the local nonprofit community.
 

Sarah and her fiancé, Justin, reside in Charleston; They live with their terrier, just a short jaunt from her hometown of Mattoon.  She presently serves the community as a 9-1-1 dispatcher.  Travel is her greatest passion, and her free time is most often spent reading, sewing, and spending time with friends and family.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Johnny Kraps is a senior at Eastern Illinois University, majoring in Communication Studies with an option in Public Relations.  He is the Marketing and Public Relations intern for The Lumpkin Family Foundation and also works with goodWORKSconnect.org to help foster discussion through social media. 

Inspired by his childhood experiences with UNICEF, Johnny plans to one day work as an External Communications Consultant for them.

At Eastern Johnny is the Vice President of the Public Relations Student Society of America.  Johnny grew up in San Jose, California but moved his senior year of high school to Harrisburg, Illinois.  He enjoys reading Repairman Jack novels, playing music, fishing, and traveling. 

As the Chronicle of Philanthropy pointed out last week, it has been 5 years now that non-profits have been operating in times of economic uncertainty.  Take a bow, you’re still standing!  Learning to be a better fundraiser is still helpful to any organization.  Expert fundraiser Mazarine Treyz, author of The Wild Woman's Guide to Fundraising, and Steve Havelka, a Web-design consultant who is on the board of the Austin Civic Orchestra recently weighed in on the Fundraising Fundamentals Podcast with their 9 Tips for Raising More Money in 2012.  We won’t give it all away here, but building long term relationships and marketing skills (not to be confused with sales skills), are major.  What is your organizations story?  What makes your cause relevant?  What is the vision you're communicating?  Do you use hootsuite.com?  Okay, enough teasers,  listen to the podcast here.

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy thinks so.

After examining 110 charities in 13 different states they found that for every dollar spent on advocacy, the local community recieved $110 in benefit.  Check out the full article here.

While there a few who have doubts about the study's ability to encompase multiple variables, there are many stories of sucess that help support it.

Ellen Bush, the executive director for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) in Montana, found huge sucess with their efforts of advocacy.  Working with state in montana they were able to get a $115,000 to $300,000 increase per year in local program funding.  Read more sucess stories here.

Share with us your own experience with nonprofit advocacy on Twitter! @goodworksconn