Meet the Cause Conference Bloggers

We are pleased to welcome our two guest bloggers, Heather Carpenter and Jessica Van Der Stad, as the guest bloggers for the AMA Cause Conference in March 10. You can keep up with their reporting on the conference live through these two blogs: AMA Cause Conference and Nonprofit Leadership 601. We hope that you will read and comment on their blog postings. Thank you to our guest bloggers!

About the bloggers...

Heather Carpetner, Nonprofit Leadership 601

Heather has served as a Nonprofit Manager, Researcher, Trainer, and Blogger to nonprofit organizations for over eight years. She earned her M.M. in Nonprofit Administration from North Park University in Chicago, Illinois and she currently pursues her PhD in Leadership at the University of San Diego where she serves as a Researcher at the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit Research. Heather teaches and presents on a variety of topics in the nonprofit sector, is an avid social media user and authors the well-known Nonprofit Leadership 601 blog.

Heather is also author and creator of three nonprofit management toolkits: Nonprofit Operations, Setting up a Nonprofit Office, and Starting a Nonprofit, and participates on a variety of national nonprofit committees including, but not limited to, the Nonprofit Sector Workforce Coalition, the Next Generation Leadership Forum and the Nonprofit Congress. Her current research interests include: nonprofit leadership, nonprofit workforce issues, capacity building for nonprofits, service-learning, nonprofit technology, and nonprofit education.

Her specialties include nonprofit leadership, nonprofit workforce issues, capacity building for nonprofits, service-learning, nonprofit technology, nonprofit finance and nonprofit education.

Jessica Van Der Stad blogging from the AMA Cause Conference Blog

• Resource & Sustainability Manger, ACCION San Diegov(twitter.com/ACCIONsd and facebook.com/ACCIONsd)
• Fundraising Chair, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention - San Diego Chapter (twitter.com/AFSPSanDiego and facebook.com/AFSPSanDiego)

Jessica’s passion for non-profit work developed while traveling and studying internationally as a student. While living in Lithuania, she volunteered in an understaffed state-run orphanage for babies under 3 years old. Through this experience Jessica realized that by doing little things with great love, anyone can make a BIG difference.

Shortly after earning a Bachelor's Degree in Interpersonal and Organizational Communication from Azusa Pacific University, Jessica set out to pursue a career doing what she loved, helping others. In 2009 she joined ACCION San Diego, a local nonprofit that works to create increased income and access to jobs for low-to-moderate income, self-employed men and women by providing small loans and business support services. There she developed a professional volunteer program, manages the organizational resource programs, and assists with grant writing and fundraising.

Jessica also currently serves as the Fundraising Chair for the San Diego Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). After losing her father to suicide in 2008, Jessica found an unyielding call to become involved in preventing suicide, educating the public about mental disorders, and reaching out to survivors of suicide loss and people at risk. Jessica is currently spear-heading the 1st-ever STRIKE OUT SUICIDE community bowling event to help raise funds to create a county-wide survivor outreach program.

In her spare time, Jessica can be found tweeting, updating Facebook, researching new social media activities to generate visibility for the organizations she works with, or just spending time with her two rescue dogs, Bruno and Marley.

Jessica is thrilled to have the opportunity to guest blog for the AMA Conference and encourages all blog-readers to comment, ask questions, and interact!