What We Learned From Our Nonprofit Day of Learning at Dodger Stadium
As Los Angeles gets ready for an exciting season, it opened its doors on February 27th to nearly 150 community-based change-makers and Salesforce experts, brought together by the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation and Arkus — all focused on how to use a data platform to do the most good.
Throughout our keynote, software demonstrations, and executive panel discussions, the community was engrossed in learning. That includes the Arkus team members there. Here are the three most salient lessons our team took away on how to best serve the Salesforce nonprofit user community.
Kerry Klima, PhD, Director of Evaluation and Research | Photo Credit: Los Angeles Dodgers, Gary Vasquez
Success requires connecting vision at the top with strategy from management and expertise on the ground.
Our opening session was led by the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF) and their line-up was as well thought out as any game-day roster. Opening speaker Nanxi Lui, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Blaze Technology and LADF Board Member, spoke to the importance of leadership and organization-wide vision before introducing LADF CEO Nichol Whiteman. Nichol walked the audience through the journey that LADF has undertaken over the past 10-plus years as they have steadily grown in impact, reach, and revenue. Nichol then introduced Kerry Klima, PhD, Director of Evaluation &Impact to take us from the 30,000 ft view of LADFn into the very data and metrics that currently guide the foundation.
The theme that came through from all three speakers from LADF was compelling: that change requires vision at the top and expertise operating underneath. The value of Salesforce was highlighted by all three leaders at the foundation as they underscored that with the right partner and ongoing support, Salesforce can turn a vision held at the highest levels into a common framework of metrics and agreed-upon data points that lay out the path to achieving that vision on a micro and macro level.
Nichol Whiteman, CEO of Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation | Photo Credit Los Angeles Dodgers, Gary Vasquez
The theme that came through from all three speakers from the LA Dodgers Foundation was compelling: that change requires vision at the top and expertise operating underneath. The value of Salesforce was highlighted by all three leaders at the foundation as they underscored that with the right partner and ongoing support, Salesforce can turn a vision held at the highest levels into a common framework of metrics and agreed-upon data points that lay out the path to achieving that vision on a micro and macro level.
Fear not the next frontier.
In 1947, the then-Brooklyn Dodgers disrupted professional sports in America by integrating baseball with Jackie Robinson. Ten years later, the Dodgers disrupted American sports by moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and bringing the Giants with them to San Francisco. Today’s frontiers are no longer geographic, but technological. And in 2023, generative AI stands out as the greatest disruption to adopt and the tallest mountain to climb.
Even in this room of 150+ nonprofit professionals, the excitement, fascination, and unease was palpable. Artificial Intelligence came up organically in panel discussions several times throughout the day, from the nonprofits that are a part of Orange County United Way playing with GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) apps to improve efficiencies, to the innovation of Salesforce’s Nonprofit Cloud and their predictive and generative AI, now commonly referred to as the “Einstein” tools.
At the end of the day, Arkus’ CEO, Jason Atwood, led an entire session on demystifying AI and how any nonprofit can take basic steps to quickly and safely bring them into this new realm.
The feedback we have gotten via conversations and nearly 100 post-event surveys indicates that interest in using existing and emerging AI tools is surging. This is a space to closely watch right now; if you want to learn more about the Arkus AI Accelerator, give us a shout!
Our impact is greater in concert, not rivalry.
The final takeaway was the validation that we get whenever we bring together a room full of professionals who are focused on solving problems to create community value, not just shareholder value. The nonprofit space is full of passionate people who are working arm in arm to make the course corrections so badly needed if we are to continue the march of progress toward building a world that gets better with every generation. Our gathering at Dodger Stadium was yet another reminder that we, as a diverse group of change-makers and advocates, are at our best when we solve our common challenges together. The permeating spirit of cooperation and partnership over rivalry and gamesmanship is a testament to the integrity of our clients and the community we are so deeply committed to serving.
We are grateful to everyone who made the journey on Tuesday through those gates into the Stadium Club and joined us in conversation and collaboration at this legendary event.
As we look ahead to what is next, we invite you to continue learning with us. Reach out to the Arkus team using our contact form to learn more about our work or this event. Learn more about the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation on their website.
