Thanks for a memorable evening!

Our 2011 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala is now his­to­ry. After months of plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion, the big night final­ly arrived… and we had a blast!

On behalf of NPI’s staff and board, I want to thank every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the event, par­tic­u­lar­ly our Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies, Bob Fer­gu­son, and our speak­ers — Tim­o­thy Ford, Reuven Car­lyle, Scott Mack­lin, Jay Inslee, and Peter Steinbrueck.

We had a full line­up, but the dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives made for a very refresh­ing and diverse speak­ing pro­gram. That’s some­thing we strive for — it’s some­thing peo­ple have told us over and over that they love about the event.

Addi­tion­al­ly, I want to thank Don Mock, Steve Kim, and Jacques Willis for the won­der­ful music they pro­vid­ed. They have a sweet sound, and we very much enjoyed it dur­ing the recep­tion (and after­wards, as we were break­ing down).

We also had out­stand­ing bar ser­vice thanks to our spon­sors Jes­si­ca Green­way and Ken Nel­son. A big thank you to them for tak­ing on that responsibility.

While we are still adding up the receipts, I’m pleased to report that we did well, as in past years. The suc­cess of this event will allow us to make new invest­ments in dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture that will great­ly ben­e­fit our exist­ing projects and per­mit us to launch addi­tion­al ones.

As I men­tioned dur­ing my remarks, tomor­row we will begin accept­ing nom­i­na­tions for the Lynn Allen Fel­low­ship. The Fel­low­ship is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for young pro­gres­sives to learn orga­niz­ing skills and prac­tice the art of bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er (as opposed to just study­ing it).

Appli­cants who are accept­ed will help NPI and NWroots orga­nize the 2011 NWrootsCon­fer­ence, tak­ing place this July 9th in Pio­neer Square. They’ll also assist us in pre­serv­ing Lyn­n’s lega­cy online at Rebuild­ing Democ­ra­cy.

Lynn did a good deal of the heavy lift­ing required to pull off the first NWroots Con­fer­ences. I know because she and I worked togeth­er on those events. She had expe­ri­ence that I did not, and her exper­ence helped me become a bet­ter orga­niz­er. In hon­or of Lynn, I want to pass on that knowl­edge to others.

Final­ly, before Peter Stein­brueck began speak­ing last night, Bob Fer­gu­son men­tioned that audi­ence mem­bers could sub­mit ques­tions for Peter which would be answered in a lat­er pod­cast. We are still accept­ing ques­tions. You can leave yours in the com­ment thread, or direct it to @nwprogressive on Twitter.

Again, thanks to all who came to our 2011 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala for a mem­o­rable evening and a won­der­ful event. Your sup­port means every­thing to us, and keeps us mov­ing for­ward even in tough times.