For nonprofits, LinkedIn is a rich source of contacts, donors, prospective board members and volunteers ... but only if the nonprofit knows how to make its profile visible and enticing.

Those who sign-up for Ventureneer's new Vcourse, LinkedIn for Nonprofits: Putting Your Best Brand Forward, will leave the class with a smart, polished profile that makes people want to know and work with an organization. It will be a profile that attracts people to a cause and makes them willing to donate time and money.

"LinkedIn is ineffectively used by many nonprofits," says Geri Stengel, founder of Ventureneer. "This class will give your nonprofit a dynamite profile, one that is visible and attractive to donors."

Nonprofit leaders and staff will learn to:

• Optimize their private profiles, section by section.


• Create a compelling profile page for an organization in a few easy steps.


• Be an active participant in the LinkedIn community:


• Join and contribute to industry and other peer groups effectively.


• Arrange to meet new people who can contribute time or money to the organization.


• Add blogs, tweets, advertising, videos ,and presentations to a profile.


• Ask questions of a peer group.


• Become an expert answerer.

Of course, a great profile is useless if no one finds it. In this online seminar, Ventureneer will guide participants in reaching out to and being found by new contacts who could become donors, board members, or volunteers.

The online course will be taught by Marc Halpert, a veteran instructor and a master of LinkedIn. Halpert has been recognized for the quality of his client service and is a frequent speaker at national, regional, and local conferences for small businesses and nonprofits. He has authored articles on innovations in cash flow technologies and on using LinkedIn.

"LinkedIn is a powerhouse if you know how to use it," says Halpert. "In this class, I'll show you how easy to use LinkedIn tools really are."

For nonprofits and their staff, a strong presence on LinkedIn complements and enhances ongoing networking efforts as well as feeding the donor pipeline. Participants will develop a brand-building strategy, using LinkedIn tools to showcase themselves and their organizations.

The class allows time for questions and answers. It is personalized, practical, and - an important factor these days! - affordable. People at all levels in a nonprofit organization can benefit, even if they already have a LinkedIn profile. This class isn't about cut-and-paste resume profiles; it's about high-impact profiles that jumpstart LinkedIn connections.

Nonprofit executives and staff members involved in marketing or development will find the class useful.

The 90-minute virtual course will be held Thursday, September 23, from 12n to 1:30 pm ET. The cost is $69. For more information or to register, visit Ventureneer.

About Geri Stengel
Geri is founder of Ventureneer, an online education and peer support service. She honed her online expertise at companies like Dow Jones and Physicians' Online. Geri co-founded the Women's Leadership Exchange and is president of Stengel Solutions, a consulting service for social-impact organizations. She has taught university-level classes in entrepreneurship and has been nationally recognized for her achievements in small business development and nonprofit guidance.

About Ventureneer
Ventureneer connects values-driven small business owners, social entrepreneurs, and nonprofit leaders with the knowledge they need to make the world a better place and to thrive as businesses. At Ventureneer, entrepreneurial and nonprofit training and advice are practical, accessible, and affordable. Ventureneer has a new approach to learning, one built on Web 2.0 technology, that blends traditional, formal instruction with informal, peer learning. You can learn new skills, collaborate with peers, develop solutions to your real-world problems, get one-on-one help from experts, and access the information you need to make better decisions for your organizations.

Ventureneer

Ventureneer

Ventureneer provides a new approach to learning that blends traditional formal instruction with informal learning derived from problem solving with peers using Web 2.0 technology. Members use Ventureneer to solve problems, request resources or information, seek guidance from others and, most important, how to have the greatest impact. The first phase of Ventureneer a blog called Vistas has launched.

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