2013 WORKSHOPS in YAMANASHI & TOKYO
Roles and impacts of nonprofit organizations in society
EVENT DETAILSYamanashi Workshop
Saturday, May 25
1:30PM – 4:30PM
Yamanashi Library
Attended by: 120 (15% male attendees)

Tokyo Workshop
Sunday, May 26
1:30PM – 4:30PM
Tokyo Women’s Plaza
Attended by: 90 (10% male attendees)

Free and open to public
Interpretation services available
Childcare services available at Yamanashi
Hosted by JWLI Alumnae Association Japan
Funded by the U.S. Japan Foundation
In partnership with Fish Family Foundation and Simmons CollegeBOSTON DELEGATESAtsuko Fish, Co-Founder, JWLIPatricia Deyton, Director, Simmons College Center for Gender in Organizations
Leo Delaney, CEO, Ellis Memorial & Eldredge House
Johanna Crawford, Founder, Web of Benefit
Tref Borden, Executive Director, Fish Family Foundation
EVENT PHOTOS
Yamanashi - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.344926278967916.1073741829.290343961092815&type=3
Tokyo - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.334394790021065.1073741827.290343961092815&type=3
EVENT FORMAT
I.
II.

III.

IV.

Opening Remarks
Atsuko Fish, JWLI Co-Founder
Speeches and Talk Session (60min)
Keys to nonprofit management success
Leo Delaney, Ellis Memorial
Johanna Crawford, Web of Benefit
JWLI fellow graduate Rie Tanioka (Facilitator)
Breakout Sessions (60min)
Group A: Effective management by Leo DelaneyGroup B: “One woman can make a difference!” by Johanna Crawford
Group C: Perspective of donors by Tref Borden and Patricia Deyton
Group D: Women’s leadership by Atsuko FishGroup Presentations and Q&A (60min)

1OPENING REMARKS
Atsuko Fish - When participating in a conference on Asian Women, Atsuko became aware of Japanesewomen’s needs for empowerment and leadership opportunities, which led her to found JWLI in 2005.
Working with Catherine Coburn, co-founder of JWLI, taught her that time is of the essence when adisaster strikes and that it is important to be on the ground to understand needs of affected people andcommunities. This experience was instrumental in her work for Tohoku after the March 2011 disaster inJapan. Atsuko inspired the audience by speaking about her decision to visit Tohoku only a month after
the disaster and about her idea of “taking actions,” which led her to establish the Japanese Disaster
Relief Fund Boston.
KEYNOTE SPEECHES on keys to nonprofit management success
Johanna Crawford – Jo emphasized the importance of having dreams and passion. She inspired theaudience with her message that with strong passion and dreams one can start an organization andprovide meaningful services, just like Web of Benefit. “Nothing is impossible,” says Jo.
Leo Delaney - Management is an important element in large organizations like Ellis Memorial. Paying
back to the community and creating collaborations are the keys to running a successful organization. It
is important to understand local needs as well as to build trusting relationships with funders (corporateand foundations), volunteers and supporters, reliable board members and skilled staff.
BREAKOUT SESSIONGROUP A - Effective nonprofit management by Leo Delaney Leo shared a number of examples andsuggestions on effective nonprofit management. Based on the audience’s interests, the discussion
focused on the areas of volunteer and staff management, funding and fundraising, and program
management. While the Yamanashi audience focused on challenges of starting an organization, Tokyo
spoke about difficulties on keeping and growing organizations. Thanks to Leo’s sensitivity to thedifference in the nonprofit sectors between the U.S. and Japan, this breakout session was successful
particularly in a sense that many attendees were encouraged by the hands-on management methods,
shared by Leo, that are easily applied to their organizations.
GROUP B - “One woman can make a difference!” by Johanna Crawford Jo explored her passion andchallenges of starting an organization on her own – how she took her passion as fuel to strategically andrealistically drive the organization. Seriousness and complexity of domestic violence in the US was eyeopening to some of the attendees. Jo shared her dream proposal and walked the attendees throughdeveloping their own dreams. Feedback shared by the attendees was that it was comforting to knowthat fundraising is a concern for even a successful organization like Web of benefit and that that advice
and suggestions shared by Leo were so practical and easily applicable.
GROUP C - Perspective of donors by Tref Borden and Patricia Deyton This breakout session gave arare insight to candid perspectives of donors/grantmakers on keys to successful fundraising. Theattendees shared their struggles with fundraising as well as their dilemma between the expectations of
the donors on financial health and sustainability of the organization and the actual need of funding forfilling budget holes and for building capacity for organizational growth. The speakers emphasized theimportance of research for funding. Anne Marie Delaney from the Family Justice Center briefly joined as
an unofficial guest speaker.
GROUP D: Women’s leadership by Atsuko Fish Atsuko shared stories of how she became a leader
that she is today including challenges and lesson learned from various work experiences and people shemet. This breakout session attracted the most number of attendees in both Yamanashi and Tokyo.
Except some who already run their organizations and engage in the nonprofit sector in some capacities,
most of the attendees were those who are interested in getting involved in nonprofit organizations but
are yet to taken any action. With inspirational stories shared by Atsuko, many of the attendees gave
feedback that they felt ready to get involved.

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FINAL PERSPECTIVE
The goal of this year’s workshops was to make a direct and long-lasting impact to foster a newgeneration of women leaders in the Japanese NGO sector. This goal was developed based on
feedback from last year’s forum attendees, who expressed strong interests in learning more handson knowledge and skills in nonprofit management and fundraising.
With this goal and last year’s feedback in mind, we made a conscious decision to organize
workshops, instead of a forum. Our definition of a workshop is smaller than a forum, interactiveand easily tailored to specific interests of audience, which would enable us to provide practicalinformation directly applicable to day-to-day nonprofit work.
It was a nice surprise to learn that Yamanashi, perhaps particularly Kofu, its prefectural capital citywhere the workshop was held, appears to have a number of small but very active nonprofitorganizations. Further, the audience’s level of knowledge about nonprofits there seems higher –they have already been involved in the nonprofit sector in some capacities as board of directors,
staff members or volunteers. The attendees explained that their nonprofit work could not be done
without collaboration with the municipal government. We believe that this type of collaboration
between nonprofit organizations and government agencies is evident in local areas due to more
prominent presence of the local government in the day-to-day lives. Therefore, the audience in
Yamanashi expressed strong interests and needs for immediately applicable skills specifically forstrategic planning and nonprofit business plan. This validates our approach of continuing to hostfuture workshops/forums in a local city, as well as in Tokyo. This is also in line with JWLI’s mission
to continuingly contribute to the growth of the Japanese nonprofit sector as well as to foster ageneration of women leaders for nonprofit organizations and social change.
It is also worth noting that 10 to 15% of the attendees at both Yamanashi and Tokyo were men.
As stated above, the level of knowledge and experience with nonprofits among this year’s audience
was much higher than we had expected. It is only natural that they were interested in workshop
contents that are more sophisticated as well as practical, such as step by step methods of how tostart and run a successful nonprofit organization, set up a mission and a vision, as well as develop abusiness plan with a long-term goal and expected outcomes.
In summary, it was a great discovery for us that there are great needs of services provided bynonprofits in Japanese society and that Japanese nonprofit organizations have matured recentyears. As a response to the needs, we plan to provide an introduction to nonprofit management andbusiness plan development through this year’s JWLI Fellows program. JWLI is a unique program,different from many of the business schools, in a way that can flexibly accommodate its program tothe current needs of Japanese society and offers hands-on skills and knowledge that are needed. We
are pleased to find the needs and the readiness of the Japanese nonprofits to bring the whole
nonprofit sector to the next level professionally and, through this year’s program, are confident thatthe fellows will be equipped with skills and knowledge necessary.

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