The Regional Foundation Center of the Free Library of Philadelphia is celebrating our 36th year of informing the nonprofit community. 

If you are a new or emerging nonprofit organization, please join us on Tuesday, May 4, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Montgomery Auditorium of the Parkway Central Library as Sharon Wilson, Esq.--Managing Partner of Wilson and Wilson, LLP and former Director of Temple University's Beasley School of Law's Center for Community Nonprofit Organizations--returns to the Library's main stage for this instructive workshop.

Learn how to start and run a successful nonprofit organization. Tackle incorporation, drafting bylaws, director's responsibilities, applying for 501(c)3 status, and all the additional steps in between. There will be a short break during the workshop, as well as time for Q & A session.

This workshop is FREE, but registration through Idealist.org is required. Please call 215-686-5423 with questions.

The Regional Foundation Center gratefully acknowledges the support of our Advisory Council, which provides financial and human resources in support of the RFC’s mission.

Tags: Regional Foundation Center

By day, they are bestselling authors. By night, they turn into jamming rockstars. Each year, the Rock Bottom Remainders put down their pens and pick up their instruments to play a tour of benefit concerts, and this Thursday, the Free Library of Philadelphia is going to rock out with the band of award-winning writers at the Electric Factory! Come out and join us as authors including Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Mitch Albom, Billy Collins, Roy Blount Jr, and special guest Philly's own Jennifer Weiner take to the stage during their first-ever stop in Philadelphia! All proceeds go to the Free Library, and that includes merchandise profits! We'll also be auctioning off a Gibson guitar signed by the authors, roundtrip airline tickets, AND a chance to get up on stage and sing with the band! For your chance to mix and mingle with the authors, buy tickets to the pre-concert V.I.P. reception!

Check out this video of Dave Barry singing during a 2007 show, and read on for concert details!

Rock Bottom Remainders Benefit Concert
Thursday, April 22 at 8:00 p.m. (doors open at 7:30)
421 N. Seventh St.
General admission: $35
V.I.P. reception: $150

 

The Regional Foundation Center (RFC) of the Free Library of Philadelphia is celebrating our 36th year of informing the nonprofit community.  Please join us for our 6th annual Nonprofit Technical Assistance Day on Tuesday, April 20, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Montgomery Auditorium of the Parkway Central Library. 

Did you know that 75 percent of private contributions to nonprofits come from individuals?  Learn more about soliciting and sustaining individual gifts at this year's event.

ANDY ROBINSON--author, fundraiser, grantwriter--will present the first workshop of the day:

MORE ASKERS=MORE MONEY: An All-Staff Approach to Engaging Donors

Most organizations work heroically to get their board members engaged in face to face fundraising--with very mixed results. Yet we tend to forget about the other "human resource" available to us: the staff.  Using successful case studies, Andy will discuss ways to engage employees in cultivating, asking and thanking donors.  (There will be a 20 minute break after Andy's workshop.)

FERNANDO CHANG-MUY, ESQ--former Program Officer at the Philadelphia Foundation, University of Pennsylvania Law Professor, former Co-Chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association's International Human Rights Committee (to name but a few appointments)--will present the second workshop of the day:

SECURING GIFTS FROM INDIVIDUALS
(beginning at about 11:00 a.m.)

This workshop will provide a quick overview for a framework for organizational effectiveness and best practices.  Then, against this backdrop of four core nonprofit areas, Fernando will discuss how resource development is an aspect of effectiveness and also a way of raising money.  He will then hone in on one source of revenue--getting funds, including major gifts, from individuals.

This event is FREE, but registration at Idealist.org is required.  Please write erefRFC@freelibrary.org or call 215-686-5423 with questions.

The Regional Foundation Center gratefully acknowledges the support of our Advisory Council, which provides financial and human resources in support of the RFC’s mission.

Tags: Regional Foundation Center

Court cases can sum up the events and movements swirling through a given period of history. They can distill important issues, as well as demonstrate the origins of legal rights we take for granted. At times the courtroom proceedings may reach the level of public spectacle. They may be a “hot item” for the news media, and the back story may influence public opinion and foment public demonstrations.

A new exhibition in the Rare Book Department, Controversy in the Courts: Regicide, Rebels, and Regal Indiscretion, examines four such cases – King Charles I, William Penn, Daniel O’Connell, and Queen Caroline – through books and illustrations from the Hampton L. Carson Collection Illustrative of the Growth of the Common Law.

The exhibition runs from April 5th through July 30th, 2010 and may be viewed from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Tours of the Department are offered on weekdays at 11:00 a.m. In addition, the Department will host special hours along with a guest lecture on Saturday, May 8th from 1.00. to 5:00 p.m. At 2:00 p.m. , Dr. Julia Rudolph, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, will present a lecture, Executing Justice: The Trial of Charles I. Dr. Rudolph specializes in the intellectual history of early modern Britain with a focus on legal history of the seventeenth century. Seating is limited, so be sure to arrive early!

Tags: Exhibitions, Rare Book Department