Festival del Fundraising
Lazise (Verona Province) and Riccione, Italy
As new forms of citizen-powered philanthropy take hold of the sector worldwide, our CEO has been helping organizers of this annual local conference outside of Verona to explore new digital trends and expose attendees to global changemakers and new nonprofit strategies and skills.
BrandStories CEO Marcia Stepanek kicking off a ‘Future of Fundraising’ plenary session she curated, moderated and co-designed for this popular Italian conference of European change makers
How do you rebrand a national conference into a global conversation?
Festival del Fundraising
Lazise (Verona Province) and Riccione, Italy
As new forms of citizen-powered philanthropy take hold of the sector worldwide, our CEO has been helping organizers of this annual local conference outside of Verona to explore new digital trends and expose attendees to global changemakers and new nonprofit strategies and skills.
THE CHALLENGE
BrandStories was asked to help inspire Italy’s next-generation of changemakers and nonprofit leaders to learn new trends and embrace new forms of storytelling, digital marketing, data-gathering and communications strategies needed to help them expand the success of their social causes.
OUR WORK
Collaborating with a cross-functional creative team and Festival organizers based at the University of Bologna, we have been co-
developing an integrated brand experience that conveys the international flavor of the event, and has, over the years, introduced attendees to some of the most compelling and progressive global changemakers and strategists reimagining the philanthropy sector and its work to improve social systems.
“Marcia Stepanek and her wide network of established and emerging nonprofit leaders and innovators make BrandStories a highly valued provider of new ideas, cutting-edge workshops and highly compelling event content.”
Valerio Melandri
Co-director, Festival del Fundraising
OUR IMPACT
Attendee surveys consistently rank the array of topics and global entrepreneurs we help assemble for this event’s plenaries as a top highlight of the annual conference.
Global speakers from our BrandStories network have included innovators in storytelling, data, fundraising and narrative change—including global philanthropist and filmmaker Abigail Disney; #GivingTuesday
CEO and nonprofit innovator Asha Curran; Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, the executive director of witness.org, which teaches global activists how to tell and share their own stories safely to catalyze citizen activism, and Kaitlyn Jankowski, the former community lead for charity:water and now social impact strategist for Facebook in New York. Also curated by BrandStories were Jeff Bladt, the nonprofit sector’s first data scientist and chief data officer for the Gen Z nonprofit powerhouse, DoSomething.org, and Katie Bisbee, chief revenue and marketing officer of DonorsChoose, the nonprofit that invented a fundraising model that has forever changed the way citizens participate in, and support, social causes.
Each speaker also shares her/his insights during one-to-one conversations with attendees, many of whom are Italy’s top fundraisers and nonprofit leaders. As keynoters, they also ensure that their progressive ideas and strategies cross the Atlantic via this conference—and often for the first time among tomorrow’s European fundraisers and future CEOs.
BrandStories guest, Andrew Zolli, Chief Impact Officer of Planet, shares insights from his work at the intersection of emerging technology, social change and resilience.
Our CEO conducting an interactive, simultaneously translated session on storytelling with Italian festival-goers