PhilanthroMedia’s Dana Variano and Dave Yim identified what they called the PhilanthroFour of Youth Engagement. According to Dana, “We really strove to find organizations and individuals doing work to engage youth from the bottom up. We wanted to find groups that inspired young people to launch their own ideas, rather than simply carry on in the status quo. I was truly awestruck by the creative ways that these four organizations used to educate, encourage, and inspire.”

One way, as demonstrated by this episode of “Dialogue for Donors,” is to capture insights from participants and noted leaders during the course of the conference.

In this case, Susan Herr conducted spontaneous interviews at the 2007 Council on Foundations Conference with foundation CEO’s including  Ford’s Susan Berresford, San Francisco Foundation’s Sandra Hernandez, COF’s Steve Gunderson, Rochester Area Community Foundation’s Jennifer Leonard, Heinz’s Max King, Knight’s Alberto Ibarguen, and Association of Small Foundation’s Tim Walter.  (While we couldn’t grab Melinda Gates, pictured above, the episode included a cameo.   Key word searches for her have generated top traffic from the episode to the PhilanthroMedia.org blog.)

Forgive us for all the name dropping, but when the COF’s “This Week in Philanthropy” ran a link to the episode, it generated more than 6,500 views on the strength of those names.  Is there a role for on-the-spot coverage at your next conference?