Photo courtesy of the WCCBI Members of the first class in WCCBI’s Elevating Nonprofit Initiative including, from left, Jacqui Catrabone (Strategy Solutions), Kim Wilson (Allegheny Community Center), John Papalia (WCCBI), Karen Austin (Struthers Library Theatre), Debbie Thompson (Strategy Solutions), Melissa McLean (Warren County Children’s Advocacy Center), Darlene Schultz John (Hospice of Warren County) and Melinda Johnson (Jefferson DeFrees Family Center). Registration for the six-course session aimed at helping and supporting nonprofit organizations in the county is open now through mid-February.

Nonprofits make up a key secretary in any healthy community.

And the Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry is full-steam ahead into the second year of a program aimed at elevating those groups.

They’ve called it the “Elevating Nonprofit Initiative.”

“It goes back a couple years at this point,” John Papalia, the Chamber’s director of chamber operations, said. “We looked at the overall mission of the chamber and recognized how important nonprofits are in the community.

“We felt we needed to do more to help the organizations grow and prosper.”

The six-week course will focus on the Pennsylvania Association of nonprofit Organizations’ standards of excellence hitting on issues like legal compliance, finance and public awareness.

Other issues that will be discussed include roles and responsibilities and fundraising strategies.

“We had a really nice first class,” Papalia said. “It went about as good as I think I could have hoped.”

While the material was valuable, Papalia said that the “conversations, peer-to-peer networking” that came out of it were “just as important; an amazing sharing of ideas. It was a lot of fun.”

Papalia said that nonprofit leaders are often “wearing a bunch of different hats” to “being able to get this extra information (with the) networking side was really powerful.”

The sessions will run from 8 a.m. to noon on Feb. 15, March 14, April 19, May 17, June 21 and July 19. Cost is $350.

It is a “relatively inexpensive course for a non-profit to go through,” he said, though he said that if an entity needs help with the funding, they can talk scholarships.

“We don’t really want to have to shy anyone away,” he said.

Recruitment for the class is open through early February. Anyone that is looking for additional information or sign up is asked to reach out to the WCCBI.

“We’re here to help,” Papalia stressed.