Center for Nonprofit Leadership > About the Center

Training and Skills Building

The Center for Nonprofit Leadership provides a broad array of management assistance workshops, networking opportunities, seminars and community convenings aimed at advancing nonprofit professional development and management excellence. Center workshop instructors are leaders in their respective fields and provide a practical perspective that can be put to use immediately. Each workshop is facilitated with the express intent of fostering a co-learning environment, where ideas are shared and resources optimized. Click here to find our schedule of workshops and register online.

Library for Nonprofit Research and Development

The Center is home to the Library for Nonprofit Research and Development with over 1,000 print publications, books and periodicals on nonprofit management topics.

In both the Library and Technology Center, visitors may access the Foundation Center Cooperating Collection’s Foundation Directory Online Professional, a database with immediate access to over 91,500 grantmaker profiles, more than 3,600 U.S. Company profiles and over 1.25 million recent grants.

The resources of the library consist of two main collections:

• The Collection for Excellence in Nonprofit Management
  Houses books and periodicals on nonprofit management, board development, volunteerism and other related topics.
• The Helen M. Yunker Collection for Research and Development of Nonprofit Resources
  Includes titles focusing on fundraising, foundations and grants, and proposal writing. This collection also includes the only Cooperating Collection in Ventura County of the Foundation Center in New York, which publishes the most comprehensive and current reference texts on foundations across the nation. These publications include complete data on foundations, their funding interests, board of directors and giving histories.

These resources are not available at any other single location in Ventura County.

The library is open to the public, free of charge Monday-Friday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Download the 2011 Bibliography

Information and Referral

Experienced Center staff are available Monday through Friday to support your important work! Need a question answered, want to post a new employment opportunity on our listserv publication, Nonprofit eNews, interested in salary ranges for nonprofit job positions? We can help!

Advancing Philanthropy

VCCF convenes the quarterly Ventura County Funders Forum - a newly established forum for funders, grantmakers and donors to share strategies, experiences, best practices, challenges and knowledge – so as to become more able funders and more effective partners. The Center also hosts the popular quarterly ‘Meet the Grantmakers’ symposia, matching local nonprofit organizations with the philanthropic interests of local and regional funders.

Nonprofit Enews

The electronic newsletter, Nonprofit Enews is disseminated to approximately 4,000 subscribers twice a month. Each edition includes up-to-date information about Center workshops and training opportunities, regional conferences and convenings, funding opportunities, new resources in the library, useful information on the World Wide Web and employment opportunities available in the Ventura County nonprofit sector. Click here to sign up!

Signature Programs

The Ventura County Nonprofit Leadership Council was conceived by a group of leaders as a forum for both seasoned and emerging nonprofit executives in Ventura County. The Council meets every other month to learn, network with colleagues and explore cutting edge leadership topics relevant to the nonprofit field. Each meeting is chaired by a local nonprofit leader with a community content expert facilitating discussion,

The Center offers two very successful intensive programs in partnership with California Lutheran University and Pepperdine University faculty and students. Each of these two programs matches participating nonprofit organizations with a team of student in a co-learning environment.

• The Strategic Planning Institute brings expert strategic planning consulting services to small and emerging nonprofit organizations including data collection and analysis, focus group and retreat facilitation and the creation of a five-year strategic plan.
• The Fundraising Planning Seminar Series includes general fundraising training, historical trend analysis, planning session facilitation and the creation of an annual development plan with goals and fundraising targets.

We are delighted to present a portfolio of training opportunities developed especially for arts organizations through the ArtsLIVE in Ventura County Initiative of the Ventura County Community Foundation. The 3-year initiative is part of The James Irvine Foundation’s Communities Advancing the Arts program. The Engaging, Sustaining & Growing Donors: the ArtsLIVE Training Program includes the following features:

• An intensive program that combines centralized workshops with on-site technical assistance to help arts organizations to meet their self-identified development goals.
• Opportunity to choose among the large variety of open enrollment workshops scheduled each year, including planned giving workshops to help arts organizations ensure their future by tapping into this important resource.

For more information about ArtsLIVE in Ventura County, visit www.artsliveinvc.org.

Community Needs Profiles

The Community Foundation believes that the community must continually assess its own needs, anticipate its future needs, and seek strategies and solutions for creating a better community. The Center houses a comprehensive collection of needs assessments and demographic data on Ventura County residents. We function as a partner, catalyst, repository and convener in the process to ensure current information is available to all nonprofit organizations, allowing them to strategically build programs and allocate resources.

Looking for statistics on Ventura County to assist you in your proposal writing?

Try the Ventura County Health & Human Services Profile. Click here to be directed to the website.

Consulting and Technical Assistance

The Center's team of professional consultants can build your organization's capacity in many ways, including: Board Development, Strategic Planning, and Retreat and Meeting Facilitation. The Center offers a free initial consultation for agencies interested in consulting services.

Click here for a printable fact sheet

Click here for testimonials from recent participants

Click here for links to other nonprofit resources

Click here for Job Opportunities