After a year and a half of pandemic disruption, fundraisers are reflecting on their jobs, their careers and looking for professional development that delivers the most value.

Join the warm and welcoming WCFCommunity from your favourite place for this year’s virtual Western Canada Fundraising Conference – September 21-23, 2022. 

The two-and-a-half day virtual conference will be filled with premium content from award-winning international speakers who are joining forces with frontline fundraising superstars to deliver informative + inspiring sessions.

We caught up with Sam Laprade CFRE, Director, Gryphon Fundraising to chat about the MasterClass she’s co-facilitating, her workshop on networking for results,  and what she hopes to do to help fundraisers build their skills and their careers at this year’s Western Canada Fundraising Conference.

Sam, you’re wearing a few hats at this year’s WCFC.  What are you most excited about?

I’m always up for anything with WCFC because I just love the incredible atmosphere and people.  This year I’m co-facilitating the Women’s Leadership in the Fundraising Sector (along with the incredible Cindy Wagman).  There has never been a more powerful and interesting group of women leaders gathered to share their experience, passion and wisdom with our sector!  The following day, I’m so excited to present my Workshop: Successful Applied Networking for Fundraisers OR “One Ringy-Dingy”.

It’s a practical, intense session about building and using your network to be a great fundraiser.  I’ll be putting myself out there and dive into real world ‘phone-a-friend’ moments where I call some members of my network for advice!

You’re a complete conference fanatic having spoken at – and attended – dozens all over the world.  What is about intimate conferences like WCFC that you just can’t get at the big conferences?

It’s the intimacy for sure.  You have time to connect with more people and lots of opportunity to meet and chat with industry leaders in a real and meaningful way…something that just impossible at the big conferences.  I’ll never forget sitting with a new WCFC attendee the year we were in Saskatoon.  I found out he had travelled from Toronto.  And he had a senior position at a large national charity with a very healthy professional development budget.  I asked him why he chose to come to WCFC.  He said he did careful research, and the conference speakers were “all cream, no milk” and he liked that he wouldn’t get lost in the shuffle of hundreds, or even thousands, of other attendees.  He’s exactly right.  And my best advice for anyone who’s really serious about building their career in this sector is to focus on conferences like WCFC because you will not only get fantastic content, but you will also have a chance to make personal connections and build an incredible and powerful network in a short time.

Sam, you’re a huge part of why WCFC has won so many awards and in 2019 was named one of the world’s best nonprofit conferences.  Why do you think WCFC was the only conference in Canada to receive this amazing honour? 

Hands down, it’s the community that evolved at WCFC right from the beginning.  All the speakers care so much about delivering high value content and a great experience.  The delegates are all really engaged and open to building genuine connections with their colleagues.  And WCFC hasn’t been afraid to take on difficult topics over the years, but does so is such a way that people feel safe to ask questions and learn together.  This was especially true last year when you had to shift online because of the pandemic.  I went to a lot of conferences that felt like unending zoom meetings.  But WCFC felt like a real community coming together to learn and grow.  I left each day feeling energized rather than drained.

Simone Joyaux was a cornerstone of our conference and her passing has really been tough for so many in our community.  Do you have a favourite WCFC Simone-ment?

Yes!  It was the year that we did the “Fundraiser’s Confessional” at the after-lunch community session.  Do you remember that?  Simone was one of the “confessee-s”, telling us about her first job as an Executive Director of a nonprofit and coming back into her office after her first board meeting and crawling under her desk to hide…and then she acted it out!  She got down on the ground in her big famous “Las Vegas” skirt and curled up into the fetal position.  Classic Simone!  And it could have only happened at WCFC.

You can learn more about Sam Laprade, and the incredible lineup of virtual Western Canada Fundraising Conference 2021 speakers (and join them! ) by visiting www.WCFC.ca.  And as a special benefit to our CharityVillage readers, the first 100 CharityVillage readers who register using promo code CVVIP25 will receive  25% off their registration!

David Kravinchuk is the Philanthropy Firebrand at The Common Good fundraising agency and the co-founder of WCFC.