When Reggie Ballard (’18) began work on the inaugural AR501c3 Capital Campaign Conference as part of his Clinton School Capstone project in 2017, he didn’t know he would still be connected to the event more than three years later.
“No,” Ballard said with a laugh. “When I first contacted Dana (Dossett), I definitely did not expect to still be involved three years later. I thought it was going to a be a Capstone project and that was going to be it.”
The third annual conference created for Arkansas nonprofits will be presented virtually starting on Wednesday, August 12. Schedule and registration information, including pricing, can be found at AR501c3.org.
The three-day event offers nonprofit business professionals and public service leaders an opportunity to network, grow, reenergize, and redefine how they view themselves as professionals. This year’s conference is hosted by the Leadership International Team in partnership with the City of Little Rock Community Programs Department and the Clinton School of Public Service.
With discussion and session titles like “Transform From Non-Profit Into For-Purpose” and “Rock Talk: Capitalize the 6 Forms of CAPITAL,” the conference puts a focus on the types of capital required to build a lasting nonprofit: social capital, intellectual capital, human capital, natural capital, material capital, and financial capital.
“All of the tenets of the conference are centered around six forms of capital, and really honing in on what is your capacity,” Ballard said. “What you can do to help expand it, and what we can do as facilitators to help you understand that this is what you can do right now, while connecting you with resources.”
The conference has grown from a Capstone project that sought to build capacity for central Arkansas nonprofit organizations to now including for-profit businesses and clients from across the state. The potential to develop Dossett’s original idea into something bigger was something she and Ballard noticed from the onset.
“We figured out pretty early on,” Ballard said, “when we were talking with people who were working with the old Arkansas nonprofit network and the coalition of nonprofits, that this was going to be something bigger than we anticipated. The interest was there.”
The team for the conference has also grown in its three short years. What started as a partnership between Ballard and Dana Dossett, Director of Community Programs for the City of Little Rock, now includes Derrick Rainey (‘12), another Clinton School graduate with heavy experience in the education and nonprofit worlds, and LaTonia Clark, a human resources consultant who has provided the group with needed assistance on the business side of the conference.
Each brings a unique skillset to the table.
Credit for the vision and conception of the 501c3 Arkansas Capital Campaign Conference goes to Dossett. In her role as Little Rock’s community programs director, she needed something to help her train and guide her partner organizations. After she couldn’t find what she was looking for in the state or nationally, she submitted her idea for the conference as a Capstone proposal to the Clinton School. Ballard saw the project proposal while finishing his International Public Service Project in Morocco.
“I was still on IPSP when I saw it,” Ballard said. “I reached out to her and we started having conversations about what it could possibly look like and she was excited that I had worked in education and had done political events, and so it just worked well. When I got back from IPSP I officially accepted it as a Capstone project and she let me have free range on all the organizing.”
Rainey has worked closely with this year’s facilitators to make sure they have everything they need to be successful in the new virtual environment. From a technical perspective, he and Ballard have worked to develop a studio at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library & Learning Center and will be on location during the conference.
In addition to Clark’s business expertise, her professional experiences have helped the conference connect with strong speakers and organizations from northwest Arkansas. “Last year we had Celia Swanson,” Ballard said of the first female executive vice president of Walmart Inc. “When you see Walmart and the Walton Foundation, those are the types of people LaTonia has helped bring in. She’s been the northwest Arkansas force.”
One theme of the conference that has stayed consistent since the beginning is the involvement of the greater Clinton School network. A number of faculty, administrators, and graduates have peppered the event’s panel discussions and sessions since day one. This year, the school’s faculty and administrators taking part in the conference include Dr. Nichola Driver, Dr. Charlotte L. Williams, and Dean James L. “Skip” Rutherford III.
One standout portion of the conference is a Lunch and Learn session with Clinton School graduates. In addition to Ballard and Rainey, this year’s panel includes Regina Taylor (‘10), Chief Community Initiatives Officer for the Arkansas Foodbank, and Connor Donovan (’19), who specializes in social entrepreneurship.
“One reason we brought the panel back was the response from the audience,” Ballard said. “Last year, we weren’t sure how participants would respond to it with it being mostly younger, entirely Clinton School people. But everybody really loved that session. Donna Terrell, who moderated the panel, said that the best panel that she facilitated.”
Moving forward, the group wants to find new ways to broaden networking opportunities and possibly add training sessions throughout the year, growing the concept into something bigger than a once-a-year event.
This year, a priority is emphasizing networking and collaboration among conference participants in a virtual setting. As with many online conferences now going virtual, a challenge is creating the same energy and excitement established by the previous years’ in-person events.
“We’ve coined ourselves as a different kind of conference since that first year,” Ballard said. “We didn’t want to be conventional. We had DJ sessions and just wanted it to be exciting. When we had a DJ playing techno in the Robinson Center to keep everyone upbeat, we want that same feeling. We want to keep the same energy and hope it translates through virtually.”
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