I just returned from the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), and I’ll be honest…I expected to learn about tools and trends, and maybe pick up a few ideas on how to increase engagement on our social media channels. What I didn’t expect? To be thinking about: POWER.
During the keynote, one word kept coming up: Power. But not the kind of power you think. Not in the loud, top-down, “who’s in charge” kind of way. But in the impactful way: how it shows up in systems and how we choose to use it.
And sitting there, I realized a few things
- Nonprofits talk about impact all the time. But we don’t always talk about power.
- Nonprofits already have power. We just don’t always use it that way.
Think about it. Nonprofits bring people together. We influence communities, shape conversations, and advocate for change every single day. That’s power. But at NTC, the message was clear:
Power doesn’t live in one person or one organization.
It lives in how we work together.
The real shift: from individual power to collective power
One of the biggest takeaways for me was, we don’t need more individual influence, we need more shared influence. That looks like organizations collaborating instead of competing. It looks like sharing platforms instead of guarding them, elevating each other’s work, and building ecosystems instead of silos. Because one nonprofit speaking is good. But a network of nonprofits speaking together? That’s where things start to move.
My favorite reminder from the conference, in between sessions, conversations, and a lot of notetaking…I kept coming back to one simple idea: We change systems together.
Not faster alone. Not louder alone. Together.
So, what does this mean for us? For me, it means rethinking how we show up.
More collaboration. More shared storytelling. More intentional partnerships. More space for others’ voices. Because the goal isn’t just visibility.
The goal is impact. And impact happens when power is shared.
NTC gave me a lot of tools and tactics. But more importantly, it gave me a reminder:
Power isn’t just something nonprofits fight against. It’s something we already have—and something we can choose to share.
Also… small but important takeaway, if you see a giant turquoise bird at a nonprofit conference…Take the picture. Trust me. Because even in conversations about power, systems, and big change… we still need moments that remind us why we enjoy doing this work.