Keynote Speaker Announced
Dr. Steve Moore of the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust
It is the mission of the Murdock Trust to to enrich the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest by providing grants and enrichment programs to organizations seeking to strengthen the region’s educational, spiritual, and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways.
The Murdock Trust is one of the top five largest private foundations in the Pacific Northwest and one of the top 100 in the country. It is one of the only foundations headquartered in the Pacific Northwest that regularly awards grants in a five-state region, although some grants are awarded for national purposes.
In addition to normal grantmaking, it is common Trust practice to convene groups of people to discuss issues of mutual interest and to provide enrichment programs that build capacity and develop leaders.
Over the past few years a particular focus of the Murdock Trust has been on building the capacity of the nonprofit sector throughout the region. We look forward to hearing Dr. Moore’s perspective on this work.
More News
Click here to download a PDF of the complete Nonprofit Excellence Awards Luncheon News.
Eleventh Annual Washington State Nonprofit Governance Conference
The next annual Governance Conference will be held Friday, November 5, from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. It will happen at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center.
“Though the economy may be stabilizing, there is no going back to business as usual for the nonprofit sector. Going forward requires us to envision a different future for our organizations. But only those boards that are willing to transform themselves will succeed in transforming their organizations.”
We are excited to announce that the author of this statement, Linda C. Crompton, will be keynote speaker for the 11th Annual Washington State Nonprofit Governance Conference. Crompton is President & CEO of BoardSource of Washington, D.C. She will be speaking on the topic of Transformative Governance.
Registration details along with session descriptions will be available soon so be sure to check back. If you’d like to make sure you don’t mess anything please email tahoma @ npcenter.org to make sure you get the latest information as soon as it is available. You can also sign up for our e-newsletter to stay current, details are to the right of this post.
Peg Giffels, Interim Director of Fund Development at NPower Seattle, wrote a great post about Paul Light’s key Note speech at the 10th Annual Nonprofit Governance Conference last month. As she says of Dr. Light,
He proposes choosing a future of Rejuvenation for the nonprofit sector, and he issued a challenge to each one of us to do things differently to claim that future.
Friday, October 30, 2009, at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center

Conference Updates:
- Luncheon Speaker Just Announced
- Schedule of Breakout Sessions (subject to change)
We are delighted to announce that we will celebrate our Tenth Anniversary conference with Keynoter Paul Light. Paul is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service, New York University and a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
While the nonprofit sector knows Paul as a leading expert in nonprofit effectiveness, he is also actively involved in research and writing on government, especially related to government reform and the political appointment process. He is currently advising on the presidential transition, and his writings on this topic can be found in the Washington Post.
One of Paul’s publications is Pathways to Excellence, a report which focuses on the creation of effective nonprofit organizations. He is also the author of the annual report on public confidence in charities.
