Scott Macklin to speak at NPI’s 2011 Spring Fundraising Gala on April 28th

Hap­py Fri­day! Just so there’s absolute­ly no con­fu­sion, this post is not an April Fools’ Day joke. And that’s def­i­nite­ly a good thing! 🙂

On behalf of the team at NPI, I am pleased to announce this after­noon that the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton’s Scott Mack­lin will be speak­ing at our third Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, which is com­ing up in just a few weeks.

Scott, an award-win­ning film­mak­er and author, is the Asso­ciate Direc­tor of the Mas­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the UW’s Dig­i­tal Media (MCDM) program.

Scott appre­ci­ates how impor­tant sto­ry­telling is, as did our late board mem­ber Lynn Allen, who sought to empow­er activists to learn how to make their ideas stick. We pro­gres­sives need to learn how to do a bet­ter job of telling our sto­ry. We have to be able to put our val­ues, prin­ci­ples, and pol­i­cy direc­tions in con­text. A good sto­ry is far more mem­o­rable than a pile of sta­tis­tics or poll-test­ed talk­ing points.

At our gala on April 28th, Scott is going to show us how we can con­vene com­mu­ni­ty through sto­ries. I’m real­ly excit­ed that’s he join­ing us, and I’m look­ing for­ward to his pre­sen­ta­tion. I hope you can be there to see it as well.

In the com­ing days, we’ll be announc­ing who else will be join­ing Scott, Peter Stein­brueck, and Reuven Car­lyle at the podi­um. But if you’re as excit­ed as we are about hear­ing from these great speak­ers, we urge you to buy a tick­et now.

Buy an indi­vid­ual tick­et ($50):

Buy a house­hold tick­et ($80):

If you need details about the event for your cal­en­dar, here they are:

• What: An event to ben­e­fit the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, with tefresh­ments, music, mem­o­rable speak­ers, and great company
• Who: Peter Stein­brueck, Reuven Car­lyle, Scott Mack­lin, NPI’s Andrew Vil­leneuve (with more speak­ers to be announced!)
• Where: Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter at Mer­cer View
• When: Thurs­day, April 28th, 2011. Recep­tion begins at 6:30 PM, main pro­gram to begin at 7:15 PM.

Can’t attend the event? Please make a con­tri­bu­tion to sup­port NPI’s work. NPI needs your help now to keep our many projects going strong, and to strength­en our research and media capabilities. 

Even if it’s just $10 or $20, your dona­tion will make a huge dif­fer­ence.

One more thing: Stu­dents who want to vol­un­teer to help put on the event can get in the door free. If you’re inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing, please get in touch with us.

We look for­ward to see­ing you on April 28th!

POSTSCRIPT: If you’d like to get a taste of Scot­t’s work pri­or to the event, we encour­age you to check out Scot­t’s chan­nel at Vimeo.