MCCANDLESS TWP, Allegheny County — Representatives from nonprofit organizations on Tuesday compared notes and discussed ideas during the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber’s Nonprofit Conference.

The third annual event brought more than 100 people together at The Chadwick to address issues facing nonprofits.

Those included the necessity of working together, planning strategically, seeking corporate donations, fundraising creatively and broadening marketing approaches.

Fay Morgan, president and CEO of the Passavant Hospital Foundation, Judy Eakin, executive director of HEARTH, and Grace Coleman, executive director of Crisis Center North, spoke on how working together as members of the North Hills Nonprofit Consortium has helped them discover and serve the needs of the community.

Morgan said the group has a handful of members who have been meeting regularly since 1993. She said that has helped avoid duplication of services, provided peer support, and offered shared staff training and board development.

However, she said the most important outcome has been the ability to recognize gaps in service.

Eakin said the vulnerable population typically faces multiple issues. For example, the people she helps with transitional housing through HEARTH are often the same people who need help from Crisis Center North to escape domestic violence.

“Because we’re coming in with different views and different focuses on issues, we’re able to educate each other,” she said.

“I’m not an expert at everything, but other agencies are.

“We don’t just collaborate as agencies; we collaborate in how we should be serving the vulnerable population.”

Consortium members also take turns being the lead agency when jointly pursuing funding, they said.

“The most important thing is that there’s trust within the group,” Eakin said. “And there has to be because if you’re approaching funders together, you have to know that everybody is going to put the consortium needs first and not have an agenda of their own.”

Coleman shared how a recent experience tending to honeybees mirrored the way nonprofits should think and act in a climate of limited resources and decreased funding.

“The level of productivity that existed in that hive showed me decision-making groups can be so much smarter than even the smartest individual who exists within them,” she said.

“Societal issues require organizations coming together to make a collective impact as opposed to the isolated impact that many individual nonprofits have made previously by working alone.”

Attendees spent the day networking, talking to vendors and attending several workshops.

Debbie Walker of Kawneer in Cranberry Township, a division of Alcoa, led a session on obtaining grants and improving corporate relations. As the division’s community liaison to the global nonprofit Alcoa Foundation, Walker handles many requests for grants, donations and sponsorships.

However, instead of donations and sponsorships, foundations prefer to provide grants, usually for specific programs or initiatives, because the results can be measured and are more sustainable, she said.

Also because corporate relations revolve around building lasting relationships with nonprofits, working with foundations opens doors to other opportunities. For example, Alcoa’s employees volunteer for many causes, and the foundation is always looking for new ones to support. Also, the foundation provides a number of smaller grants, and officials can help nonprofit representatives through the application process for those grants.

Brienne Cole of Junior Achievement of Northern California led a session on creative fundraising.

A Western Pennsylvania native, Cole has planned a number of high-profile events on the West Coast as the brand manager for Quintana Events.

She said despite the Internet’s growth as a tool for raising funds, in-person events are still the major component of marketing. That is because events provide opportunities to get people together and engage them with a cause by appealing to all their senses.

Cole admitted markets can become saturated with many of the same types of fundraising events — galas, golf outings, runs/walks, etc. However, she said the trick is not to invent a completely new event but to put a new twist on a traditional one or offer innovative ways for sponsors to get involved.

Some examples include a question-and-answer session with the honoree of a gala, a drink at a golf outing named after the sponsor or sponsors promoting units of their business that might not be as well known.

The conference was presented by Huntington Bank and sponsored by NexTier Bank and Farmers National Bank of Emlenton.