Early last week, life in Charlotte turned upside down as businesses, nonprofits and families rushed to adapt to home-based digital life. Many of us are homeschooling kids, figuring out how to have virtual board meetings (anyone else doing the ZoomMullet?), calculating our TP stock and working to make sure the most vulnerable among us have what they need to weather the crisis. 

By the middle of the week, we started receiving questions from local nonprofit leaders. What are grassroots organizations doing to stay engaged with their constituents? How do you host a virtual board meeting? Will funding be available to support nonprofits? How do we continue messaging our mission when everything is COVID-focused? 

We don’t have all the answers - we’re honestly not even sure what next week will bring. But we are certain that this community has the courage and fortitude to continue moving our missions forward, because they are more important than ever before. We also believe that our community needs time and space to gather, share ideas and learn what is working from our friends in the nonprofit community.  

Beginning this Friday, March 27, Next Stage is hosting a series of 30-minute, online roundtable discussions called The New Normal. Each roundtable will feature several local nonprofit leaders sharing what they are doing to navigate a specific area of the crisis, followed by time for questions and discussion. 

Our first roundtable topic will be “What’s on Your Mind?” featuring Don Jonas, Executive Director of Care Ring; Banu Valladares, Executive Director of Charlotte Bilingual Preschool; and Shannon Binns, Executive Director of Sustain Charlotte. They will discuss the questions and concerns that have been top of mind for them over the last week, as well as how they are navigating short term challenges and changes. 

Register for free and join Charlotte’s nonprofit community as we learn to navigate The New Normal.