The Drucker Institute provides a day of information and inspiration for nonprofits

The Drucker Institute hosted two events on Oct. 28, which provided both information and inspiration for nonprofit leaders and others interested in the healthy functioning of the social sector.

The Institute’s daytime conference, “When the Bottom Line is Changed Lives: How Do We Know Whether Nonprofit Organizations are Effective?” attracted more than 75 people to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. They heard from a variety of leading experts on nonprofit effectiveness, including David Renz, director of the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; Don Howard, a partner at The Bridgespan Group; and Irv Katz, president and CEO of the National Human Services Assembly.

To see material from their presentations, as well as welcoming remarks from Drucker Institute Director Rick Wartzman, contact the Drucker Institute.

A highlight of the conference was a lunchtime keynote speech by Karen Baker, California’s Secretary of Service and Volunteering.

Later that evening, the Institute hosted a dinner at the Music Center in downtown L.A. to honor this year’s winners of the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation. (For more on this year’s winners—KickStart International, Hidden Harvest, and the Calvert Foundation—click here. And to see a documentary short on how KickStart lifts subsistence farmers in Africa out of poverty, click here.)

The award celebration was kicked off by a group from City Year—young people who dedicate a year of their lives to community service—who showed the suit-and-tie-clad audience how to get “fired up.”

A special moment in the program came as one great social-sector leader set the stage for another: Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Frances Hesselbein, chairman of the Leader to Leader Institute and former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, introduced the evening’s keynote speaker—Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp. During her talk, Kopp noted that Peter Drucker’s “principles have, in fact, proven to be the key . . . to our growth and impact.”

To see a video of their remarks, click here. For photos from the award dinner, contact the Drucker Institute.