I was disappointed when it was announced that the NTEN NTC would be in San Francisco this year.

The NTC is the nonprofit technology conference. I loved it last year in New Orleans. The sessions I attended were outstanding, and very easy to adapt to the way our small nonprofit can get more out of the tools we use. Less focus on consultants and high-budget solutions. Not to mention all the great connections I made, many I now consider dear friends.

Why was I disappointed? C3 doesn’t have the thousands of dollars it would cost for me to register, fly out there and stay. If the conference were on the east coast, I could get there by cheaper means. In these tight times (don’t you hate that phrase?), there’s not much available for infrastructure-targeted spending (as opposed to travel that’s mission-based, like attending medical conferences).

I already went to the Convio Summit and Salesforce Dreamforce conferences this fiscal year. I though the NTC would be out of my reach.

And then my friends at Convio got together with the good folks at NTEN and did something wonderful. They’re offering NTC scholarships! They’re raising money that will be matched by Convio to fund registrations, as well as asking for contributions of air miles to help with travel expenses. These scholarships are available to folks who work for nonprofits with budgets of less than $1 million. Hello!!

Of course, I put in my application the second I heard about it. I hope it was soon enough, as scholarships are given in the order of requests received.

I made a small personal donation to the fund. Seemed kind of funny to donate to a cause I’m hoping to be a recipient. But I figure if I can’t get or use the scholarship, I want to help someone else get there. It will be worth it.

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