Last week, several of us from Aplos had the unique experience of attending the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in San Jose, CA. Billed as the nonprofit sector’s signature technology event, it was our first year attending – so we were on a mission to learn as much as we could, meet as many people as we could and share as much about Aplos as we could with those who stopped by our booth.

First impressions.

The conference was massive, from the size of the exhibit hall to the number of breakout sessions available to the shear number of tweets published. This was a “go big, or go home” type of conference! Yet despite all that, everything was well organized and fluid.

Who’s it for?

It was clear that the organizers of the conference wanted everyone to learn a lot with the breakout sessions organized into the following categories: marketing and communications, fundraising, IT, leadership, and program. We sat in on a few marketing sessions and were blown away by the following presenters: Lacy Baugher, Meghan Murphy, Chris Tuttle, and Leah Kopperman.

Here’s what Megan from our marketing team had to say about her experience at the conference:

“I had a great time at the NTEN conference. Aside from the freebies (thanks for the pickle pen, Cornershop Creative!) and delicious food, I met some really great people. I met Devan Twyman and his team with RaiseMore, who are changing the game for Nonprofits and online giving through a mobile App. And Megan Soffer with Public Interest Registry, a company striving to help organizations improve their identity online through a domain name. The conference was all about making connections and coming up with ways to help each other reach the ultimate end goal to help nonprofits be successful.”

Additional shout-outs.

We loved talking to Pia Payne from Nonprofit Pro and Amy DeVita from Top Nonprofits. Both websites/ magazines provide a wealth of information for those involved in the nonprofit sector. We also had a great conversation with Mike Kim from iATS Payments. What’s up, Mike!

Our contest.

We were giving away an Apple Watch as part of a contest for those who came by our booth. All they had to do was to guess how many LEGOS our orange and white T-Rex dinosaur took to build and they were entered to win. Congratulations to Bill Swersey of HIAS.org who won the Apple Watch for guessing 525 bricks (the dinosaur was made using 520!).

#FearTheDino

We also appropriately tied the contest into a larger awareness campaign we called #FearTheDino. In short, someone from our team wore one of those inflatable dino suits and walked around the conference trying to get everyone to take selfies using the hashtag on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. We had a lot of fun educating those on the importance of using accounting software that wasn’t from the stone ages! Click here to see everyone’s posts: http://bit.ly/21Q10Ur.

All in all, we connected with a ton of new people in the nonprofit space, learned a lot and we had a blast at the conference! Would we recommend the Nonprofit Technology Conference to those considering attending next year? You bet!