Small Nonprofit Affinity Group – Sept. 2026
Small Nonprofit Affinity Group – Sept. 2026
Leading a smaller nonprofit often means making organization-wide decisions with limited staff, time, and resources.
Nonprofit Staten Island’s Small Nonprofit Affinity Group brings together leaders of small, grassroots, founder-led, and volunteer-led organizations. Across five sessions, participants compare approaches, exchange resources, and work through the practical questions that come with building sustainability under real capacity constraints.
We’ll open the year with a conversation on collaboration across Staten Island’s nonprofit sector, led by Michelle Bascome, Nonprofit Staten Island’s Director of Programs & Development. When is a partnership genuinely worth the effort? When does it start to cost a small organization more than it returns? And how do you start and maintain collaborations that last?
The group leads from there, identifying the issues that feel most useful to tackle together this year.
Open to Nonprofit Staten Island members and colleagues interested in learning more about membership. New participants are welcome.
Enter through the Beach Street entrance, the downstairs red door. Parking is available on site.
Refreshments available.
Our Speakers
Michelle Bascome
Michelle Bascome is Director of Programs & Development at Nonprofit Staten Island, where she leads program strategy, partnership development, and fundraising initiatives that strengthen nonprofits and improve coordination across the borough. Her portfolio includes capacity-building workshops and convenings, peer-learning initiatives, SI COAD, and collaborative projects connecting nonprofit leaders with resources, expertise, and one another.
Michelle brings experience in program design, grant development, coalition building, and cross-sector partnership. In this session, she will invite small nonprofit leaders to look candidly at collaboration: how to assess shared value, organizational capacity, decision-making, and the real costs of partnership before deciding when and how to work together.
