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Area nonprofits are coming together to make a difference in our community. It’s happening at the 2nd annual Nonprofit Impact Conference on Nov. 6, and it’s made possible by the Volunteer Center of the Lehigh Valley.

The center’s CEO, Karen Smith, joined 69 News at Sunrise Tuesday morning to tell us more about the event, which will be held at Wind Creek in Bethlehem from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

David Brown, from Philadelphia, will be the keynote speaker. He is an Associate Professor and the Assistant Dean for Community and Communication at the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University, the center’s website says.

Amanda Amato, with Valley Youth House, and Alisa Baratta, Executive Director of the Third Street Alliance in Easton, will be among the speakers at the conference.

The event will feature more than 18 breakout sessions, including lessons learned from last year’s conference, Smith said.

Smith talked about the work the Volunteer Center of the LV does and how the Nonprofit Impact Conference came to be.

The center is focused on the nonprofit community, she said, noting there are around 400 nonprofits in the Lehigh Valley. The center focuses on capacity-building support, which it defines through training and mobilization of corporate volunteers.

The center tries to figure out how to best address nonprofits’ needs.

In 2022, the organization heard that nonprofit leaders didn’t have an opportunity to convene in an impactful way to make connections. The center wanted nonprofits to have the opportunity to meet like-minded people and get a sense of how other nonprofits do their work.

The Volunteer Center of the Lehigh Valley got a committee together to talk about the issue, and decided to launch the conference to help get multiple nonprofit leaders together.

Smith discussed the goal of the event, and what she hopes guests take away from it. She said she wanted to give nonprofits the opportunity to connect and learn from each other.

She talked about how the community can get involved.

For conference details and tickets, click here.