/ By Robert Jones / If you’re flying from the East Coast to attend Upswell LA, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll be wide awake at 4 am in the Pacific Time Zone. But don’t worry, the perfect cure for insomnia is just four blocks away. The Original Pantry Café touts itself as “LA’s 24-hour icon.”…
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Years from now, when we look back at how and why Upswell surged into existence, we’ll be able to point to people like Regeanie Corona as the reason. Regeanie, founder and CEO of California-based nonprofit Advancing the Seed, was both one of the first changemakers to sign up for Upswell and a high-energy collaborator at…
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The “common good” is generally defined as what is good for all people. Point to any time in the history of human existence and we have often fallen short of true common good for all. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. In fact, that is the very essence of civil society – a group…
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/ By Robert Jones / Drew Ferguson spent approximately 100 hours pouring himself into a three-page narrative about the nonprofit sector and its value to society. Then he watched, unfazed, as 15 sector leaders in Los Angeles tore it apart. After all, this kind of creative destruction was always part of the plan, and finding…
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Have you ever come across a product or service that made you say, “Wow! That really works for me?” The reason why we feel this excitement when we encounter a well-designed product or service is because it was probably made with the end user in mind. This design method is known as Human-Centered Design—or HCD—and…
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/ By Christian Clansky / Once we landed on the name Upswell, we knew the bar for the brand had been raised quite high. We would need a brand environment as energetic and moving as the name. It would have to be engaging, memorable, flexible, energetic, on-trend, evocative, consistent, emotional, lasting…basically, we knew we needed…
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/ By Kristina Gawrgy Campbell / At this point, it should come as no surprise that Upswell has its roots in the Independent Sector Conference. What may surprise you is how much of Upswell harkens back to the very founding of Independent Sector and its mission and purpose. In 1979 when two organizations merged to…
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/ By Christian Clansky / In the early days, before Upswell was Upswell, we knew that if we were going to be successful at reimagining the idea of a conference, we would need a name to match that ambition. It would have to be exciting and energetic. It would have to put changemakers in the…
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So, what IS a changemaker? Well, it depends on who you ask. President Bill Clinton used the term “changemaker” to describe his wife Hillary Clinton’s public service achievements immediately following the 2016 Democratic National Convention – causing a media storm. Bill Drayton, founder and CEO of Ashoka, the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs, was…
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/ By Debra Rainey / Los Angeles is the setting for Upswell LA, scheduled November 14-16. LA is home to many things – sunny days, “star-filled” nights, movie-making, and many of the recording industry’s hottest and emerging artists. As planning for Upswell LA continues, we’d like to introduce our community of changemakers to some of…
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