March 28, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
The cycling champion Lance Armstrong was the headline act at this week’s Association of Fundraising Professionals conference in Dallas. But to Jack Siegel, a Chicago accountant and lawyer, the real story at the conference was on the exhibit floor.
There, the more than 4,000 people who poured through the Dallas Convention Center could get a lesson in the business behind the charity business.
On his Charity Governance blog, Mr. Siegel takes readers on a tour of the exhibit hall floor.
There, among the 250 exhibitors, are companies that make engraved memorial bricks, offer insurance for golfing contests, and secure memorabilia from athletes such as Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan to sell at auctions.
“It is clear that the world of the virtual charity has arrived. That means charities and their boards can concentrate on mission and purchase specialized services from experts without the need to staff up or reinvent the wheel,” Mr. Siegel writes. “Now if someone could only figure out how to outsource the mission we could all go home.”
Did you attend the AFP conference? If you did, what stood out to you from this year’s event?
You can read an article about a fund-raising survey released at the meeting and hear interviews with two scholars who spoke at the meeting on The Chronicle’s Web site.
